Report

Capital at risk: rebooting London’s governance for a new era

This report from UK think tank Re:State explores rebooting London’s governance for a new era.

London’s governance settlement is now more than 25 years old, designed for the capital as it was a quarter-century ago.

While devolution has accelerated across England, London’s governance has fossilised. City Hall is underpowered compared to its international peers and seems to be standing still next to the most established English strategic authorities.

The result is a widening gap between London’s economic reality and the institutions meant to steward it, with real consequences for growth, infrastructure and the ability to join up policy and delivery.

At the heart of the problem is fragmentation. London has 33 local authorities and a “two-track” system, with the GLA on one side and boroughs on the other, linked too often by informal goodwill rather than durable, formal roles.

That makes it harder to agree a single direction for the city, to organise delivery at the right scale, and to make the strongest possible case for more powers from central government. Subregional arrangements exist, but their boundaries are inconsistent and misaligned, limiting their impact as organising units for investment and delivery.

Capital at Risk, the latest report from Re:State’s ‘Re:Imagining the Local State’ programme, argues that if London is to be ready for deeper devolution, the time has come for a new approach: reorganisation of London’s boroughs, a shake-up of the London Assembly, and a genuinely “devolution by default” approach to the powers of the Mayor.