London boroughs are the thirty-two principal subdivisions of the administrative area of
Greater London and are each governed by a London borough council.
The London boroughs were all created at the same time as Greater London on 1 April 1965
by the London Government Act 1963 and are a type of local government district.
Twelve were designated as Inner London boroughs and twenty as Outer London boroughs.
London boroughs have populations of around 150,000 to 300,000, which is equivalent to
a typical English city.
Inner London boroughs tend to be smaller, both in terms of population and area, and
have higher population densities than Outer London boroughs.
The London boroughs were created by combining whole former units of local government, and
a review undertaken between 1987 and 1992 led to a number of relatively small alterations
in borough boundaries.
London borough councils provide the majority of local government services, in contrast
to the strategic Greater London Authority, which has limited authority over all of Greater
London.
The councils were first elected in 1964 and acted as shadow authorities until 1 April
1965.
Each borough is divided into electoral wards, subject to periodic review, for the purpose
of electing councillors.
Council elections take place every four years, with the most recent elections in 2010 and
the next elections due in 2014.
The political make-up is dominated by the three major national parties.
Twenty-eight councils follow the leader and cabinet model of executive governance, with
directly elected mayors in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.
The London boroughs and London borough councils cover Greater London outside the City of London,
which is instead governed by the City of London Corporation and the Inner and Middle Temples.
History Creation
From the mid-1930s, the Greater London area comprised four types of local government authorities.
There were county boroughs, municipal boroughs, urban districts and metropolitan boroughs.
The large county boroughs provided all local government services and held the powers usually
invested in county councils.
The municipal borough and urban district authorities had fewer powers.
The situation was made more complex because county councils could delegate functions such
as elementary education and library provision to the municipal borough and district councils,
and this was implemented piecemeal.
Reform of London local government sought to regularise this arrangement.
The Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London was established in 1957 and
the report was published on 19 October 1960.
It proposed 52 "Greater London Boroughs" with a population range of 100,000 to 250,000.
This was made up of a mixture of whole existing units, mergers of two or three areas, and
two boroughs formed as the result of a split.
In December 1961 the government proposed that there would be 34 boroughs rather than 52,
and detailed their boundaries.
The proposed number was further reduced to 32 in 1962.
On 1 April 1965, the 32 London boroughs and Greater London were created by the London
Government Act 1963.
12 boroughs in the former County of London area were designated Inner London boroughs
and the 20 others were designated Outer London boroughs.
Outer London borough councils were local education authorities, but Inner London borough councils
were not.
There was a separate Inner London Education Authority for the inner area, where the former
local authorities had no history of providing education.
The City of London continued to be administered by the City of London Corporation and the
Inner and Middle Temples.
Elections were held on 7 May 1964, with the new councils acting as shadow authorities
before coming into their powers the following year.
Former authorities The boroughs were created as follows.
Some relatively minor changes have been made to the boundaries of boroughs since 1965,
and two have changed their names.
Greater London Council Between 1965 and 1986 the boroughs were part
of a two-tier system of government and shared power with the Greater London Council.
The split of powers and functions meant that the Greater London Council was responsible
for "wide area" services such as fire, ambulance, flood prevention, and refuse disposal; with
the London borough councils responsible for "personal" services such as social care, libraries,
cemeteries and refuse collection.
Several London borough councils and the GLC were involved in the rate-capping rebellion
of 1985.
On 1 April 1986 the GLC was abolished and the borough councils gained responsibility
for some services that had been provided by the Greater London Council, such as waste
disposal.
The Inner London Education Authority continued to exist as an ad hoc authority.
In 1990 it was abolished and the Inner London borough councils also became local education
authorities.
Name and boundary changes The Local Government Act 1972 provided a mechanism
for the name of a London borough and its council to be changed.
This right was taken up by the London Borough of Hammersmith on 1 April 1979 and the London
Borough of Barking on 1 January 1980.
Borough names formed by combining two locality names had been discouraged when the boroughs
were created.
The London boroughs were created by combining whole existing units of local government and
it was anticipated that this might provide arbitrary boundaries in some places.
The London Government Act 1963 provided a mechanism for communities on the edge of Greater
London to petition for transfer from London boroughs to a neighbouring county district.
These were completed in 1969 as the transfers of Knockholt in Bromley to Kent, and of Farleigh
and Hooley in Croydon to Surrey.
The act also allowed for transfers between London boroughs and neighbouring counties
where there was consensus for the change between all the relevant local authorities.
This power was used to exchange two islands on the River Thames between Richmond upon
Thames and Surrey.
The Local Government Boundary Commission for England was established by the Local Government
Act 1972 to review periodically the boundaries of Greater London and the London boroughs.
The first review of boundaries commenced on 1 April 1987 and reported in 1992.
Following the review a series of relatively minor adjustments were made to borough boundaries,
for example uniting the whole of the Becontree estate in Barking and Dagenham.
The commission noted that many of its recommendations were strongly opposed and were not implemented.
The boundary of the City of London with adjacent boroughs was adjusted to remove some anomalies.
Greater London Authority In 2000 the Greater London Authority was created,
comprising the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
As a strategic authority, it absorbed only limited powers, such as major highways and
planning strategy, from the borough councils.
London borough councils The London boroughs are administered by London
borough councils which are elected every four years.
They are the principal local authorities in London and are responsible for running most
local services, such as schools, social services, waste collection and roads.
Some London-wide services are run by the Greater London Authority, and some services and lobbying
of government are pooled within London Councils.
Some councils group together for services such as waste collection and disposal.
The boroughs are local government districts and have similar functions to metropolitan
boroughs.
Each borough council is a local education authority.
Shared services Shared services are borough council services
shared between two or more boroughs.
Shared services were previously resisted due to councils jealously guarding their authority.
However, as the need for budget cuts in the late 2000s became apparent some councils have
sought service mergers.
Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham will merge their education services, including
school admissions and transport by 2011.
In October 2010, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster announced plans
to merge all their services to create a "super-council".
Each would retain its own political identity, leadership and councillors but staff and budgets
would be combined for cost savings.
Lambeth and Southwark likewise expressed an interest in sharing services.
Critics of shared services The management thinker and inventor of The
Vanguard Method, Professor John Seddon, claims that shared service projects based on attempts
to achieve 'economies of scale' are a mix of a) the plausibly obvious and b) a little
hard data, brought together to produce two broad assertions, for which there is little
hard factual evidence.
He argues that shared service projects fail because they cause a disruption to the service
flow by moving the work to a central location, creating waste in handoffs, rework and duplication,
lengthening the time it takes to deliver a service and consequently creating failure
demand.
Seddon referred directly to the so-called tri-borough shared services in a recent article.
Major issues Richard Cressey, a policy officer at Westminster
City Council, participating in a discussion on housing policy in 2013, asserted that the
sums of money required for regeneration were increasingly beyond that which could be borrowed
by any one London Borough, and argued for borrowing on a pan-London basis.
List of boroughs
There are four boroughs that do not have "London Borough" in their names: the City of Westminster,
and the Royal Boroughs of Kingston upon Thames, Kensington and Chelsea, and Greenwich.
See also
Borough ISO 3166-2:GB, subdivision codes for the United
Kingdom Political make-up of London borough councils
Notes
References
External links London Boroughs Map
London borough comparison tool