The Greater London Authority - Interest Representation and the Strategic Agenda

In this paper we report on research carried out into the first nine months in the life of the Greater London Authority the new and innovative government for London that took up office in the year 2000. We focus on the access of different interest into the agenda setting process of strategic policy during this period. Over the last twenty year business interests have enjoyed a privileged position in relation to the strategic agenda in the city and we explore the extend to which this has continued in the new governmental arrangements. We show that there is a considerable amount of continuity in the access of the business lobby. However there is also a new political environment created by the advent of New Labour on 1997 and the election of Ken Livingstone as the first elected Mayor. We show how a consensus building approach has also imbued the new authority and led to attempts to involve a wide range of interests. We analyse this juxtaposition of business privilege and the inclusive ‘Big Tent’ approach and in the final section raise some question for further research. The establishment of the Greater London Authority (GLA) in 2000 was a significant step in the history of London government. Many of the features of this new institutional structure were very innovative, most noticeably the directly elected office of Mayor. In this article we focus on the opportunities for participatory access in the early stages of strategy formulation. To what extent have the new arrangements led to a new configuration of participation and who is drawn into the debate on setting the strategic agenda? In order to explore this question we focus on two dimensions. First we examine the role of business groups and whether their involvement changed significantly from the previous decade. Secondly we explore the extent to which the rhetoric of inclusion and consensus has led to new opportunities for broader involvement. The election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 heralded the beginning of a long political regime in which, through the propagation of a free market ideology, the interests of business were given considerable privilege. This however did not immediately result in access to the strategic policy agenda for London as such an agenda was largely missing from the political landscape. The abolition of the GLC in 1986 meant that statutory strategic guidance for the capital was limited to slimmed-down national guidelines. However by the early 1990s there was mounting concern about the lack of strategic leadership in the capital. The feeling was that London was losing out in the more competitive world by not having a voice or vision. In the new arrangements that evolved over the following years to fill this vacuum the business community was very well represented (Travers and Jones, 1997; Newman and Thornley, 1997). It is of particular salience here that this interest to develop a more proactive approach came from local authorities representing the central area, the business sector and central government who then collaborated. The City of London, the City of Westminster, and the London Dockland Development Corporation became very active in commissioning work on London’s competitiveness (e.g. Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte, 1991; see Gordon, 1999, for a discussion of this period). In 1992 London First was set up with finance from the private sector to promote London and influence the strategic agenda for the city. Meanwhile central government was also feeling the need for London to have a strategic voice and set up the London Forum soon merged into London First. The pattern that then followed was for London First, a body that represented business strategic priorities, to be heavily involved in central government’s formulation of strategic guidance. This took place for example through leadership of the City Pride Prospectus, through advice to government on Strategic Guidance and through membership of the Joint London Advisory Panel. Our interest here is to explore whether this involvement continued in the very different institutional framework of the GLA. It was not only the institutional arrangements of London government that had changed. Since the advent of the New Labour national government in 1997, local government in Britain was operating in a very different political climate. Under the previous Conservative governments local democracy had been given low regard, local governments were constrained, metropolitan authorities abolished, and many decisions diverted to bodies without local representation. According to Skelcher and Stewart (1993) by 1993 there were 272 quangos operating in London. The Labour government promised in their election campaign to remedy the democratic deficit created by such appointed bodies. Tony Blair promised ‘a proper strategic authority for London to replace the mishmash of boards and quangos’ (Blair, 1996, p.314). Thus the New Labour government promised a shift in direction in which local democracy was to be