LONDON

LONDON MAYORAL BRIEFING

Working together for

1. Speaking up together for fair resources for London Given the cash squeeze on London’s public services and the increasing demands placed on them by this ever-growing city, it is vital that the Mayor speaks up for fair funding for all of the services which Londoners rely on – from schools to health services and from adult care services to housing. Fair funding for London will ensure that the capital is able to play its unique role in underpinning the recovery of the UK economy as a whole.

2. Co-designing infrastructure for a global city of diverse places As the largest city in Europe, London requires significant investment in its infrastructure both at pan-London and at local level to enable it to continue to be a great place to live and work. This includes investment in transport, housing, health and schools to ensure that no part of London gets left behind.

3. Working together to reform public services through devolution In a complex landscape the issues that people want addressed often depend on collaboration across different parts of government; housing delivery needs transport investment, health relies on social services, police work with social workers. These partnerships are unique to every city and are best delivered as close to the citizen as possible. Devolution is required to unlock innovation and quality services.

4. Fiscal devolutionFinancial efficiency depends on getting the best from fiscal devolution. How we manage taxes across London must be a joint endeavour between the Mayor and the boroughs. As government reforms other taxes, we must develop solutions that ensure the best mix of funding and incentives for all London’s public services.

5. Partners in a global city and all its diverse placesA global city demands integrated governance in many areas of public service to realise the outcomes for Londoners. There needs to be a commitment to a genuine partnership approach, focussed on improving lives - both in the big systems the whole city relies upon and the places in which Londoners live and work.

For more information: www.londoncouncils.gov.uk

London’s boroughs represent and serve the people of London across the capital’s diverse places and communities. They provide a wide range of services focused on the needs of individual residents, communities and business. Some of these are provided directly by the boroughs themselves and others through the local integration of services provided by government departments and agencies, and by private and voluntary sector organisations. They also commission services – from child protection and adult care, through street cleansing and waste management, to planning, housing and parks. In all, boroughs spend around £20 billion a year.

Since the creation of London’s dynamic two-tier system of government in 2000, and the election of the first directly elected Mayor of London, the boroughs have sought to work in a partnership with the Mayor. The result is that the Mayor and the boroughs influence every aspect of government across London.

Public service reform and devolutionThe UK continues to have one of the most centralised systems of government in the world. The massive reductions to core funding faced by the boroughs requires equally significant reform of public services in London enabled by devolution from Whitehall. Over the past four years the Mayor and the boroughs have worked together, and with partners across London and beyond, to promote the benefits of reform. We have argued that democratically accountable, locally delivered, integrated services offer the best solutions to meeting the challenges faced by a global city in the 21st century.

This has been recognised by government in the areas of employment support, skills, health and fiscal devolution. These have been significant steps.

Working togetherIt has become clear that joint action between the Mayor and the boroughs is a very powerful tool for delivering improved outcomes for Londoners over the next four years and beyond. Given the scale of the financial challenge facing public services such reform is vital to sustaining public services.

London Councils represents the 32 boroughs and the City of London Corporation. It makes the case to government and others to get the best deal for Londoners and to ensure that our member authorities have the resources, freedoms and powers to do the best possible job for their residents and local businesses.

WORKING TOGETHER FOR

LONDON London elects a new Mayor in 2016 who will have to hit the ground running to tackle the challenges facing Londoners.

LONDON MAYORAL BRIEFING

London Councils expects to work in partnership with the new Mayor for the benefit of Londoners within the following set of principles:

These principles inform our overall approach to strengthening the engagement that is already happening between the Mayor’s office and boroughs in the interests of Londoners.

Greater

London’s population is growing by more than 100,000 a year and is set to exceed

million

by 20209

LONDON’S ECONOMY CONTRIBUTES

22% OF THE UK GDP

0

Total public spending

Central gov department spending

London Boroughs’ core funding-70

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

SPENDING FORECAST CENTRAL v LOCAL

Outurn

2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19

Forecast

% LIVING IN RELATIVELOW INCOME

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

2.2m Londoners live in relative low income after housing costs, the highest proportion of any region in the UK

England 21%

Wales 23%

Scotland 18%

Northern Ireland 20%

London 28%

For more information: www.londoncouncils.gov.uk

LONDON MAYORAL BRIEFING

THE LONDON

BOROUGHS

Kingston

Wandsworth

Sutton

Lambeth

Southwark

Lewisham

Croydon

TowerHamletsCity

Newham

Hillingdon

Harrow

Brent

Ealing

Hounslow

Richmond

Barnet

Haringey WalthamForest

RedbridgeHavering

Barking & Dagenham

Greenwich

Hammersmith

& FulhamKensington &

Chelsea

City of

Westminster

Camden

Islington

Hackney

Bexley

Bromley

Enfield

Merton

For more information: www.londoncouncils.gov.uk

LONDON MAYORAL BRIEFING

Resourcing Local ServicesBy 2019/20, London boroughs are likely to have seen a reduction in core funding of 63 per cent in real terms compared with 2010/11. At the same time boroughs face increasing demands on their services. The capital’s population has increased by around 113,000 each year for the past five years and is set to exceed 9 million by the end of the decade, meaning boroughs face a combined funding pressure of more than £3 billion by 2020.

Local control over local resourcesLondon Councils has lobbied for local control of business rates, recently announced by the Chancellor, for over 10 years, and it has played a major role in the London Finance Commission which reported on the need for reform of local government finance in 2013. Devolved power to raise and allocate resources in London would give the city’s citizens and businesses more local accountability: the politicians who raise taxes would be the same politicians who decide how the money is spent. Local communities, and London as a whole, would benefit from economic growth and housing development in their areas. A broader range of taxes would allow for a better balance in the contribution to services between residents, businesses and visitors.

Business ratesWe are working with the Mayor to ensure a devolved system of business rates retention in London, should reflect the following principles:

• That it supports growth and enterprise• That it supports our ambition for devolution to

London• That it supports local services facing significant

demand pressures.

Housing and InfrastructureLondon is far short of the minimum number of new homes we need to build each year to keep pace with our growing population. The shortage is leading to very high housing costs and risks damaging London’s quality as a place to live and work. 88 per cent of Londoners now agree that we have a housing crisis – and this crisis will continue to grow until we build far more of the right kinds of homes in the right places.

In the face of these challenges, boroughs are working with the GLA and the government to develop innovative ways to use their existing capacity and creative partnerships to increase new supply. It will be essential to develop this work with the new Mayor of London.

To improve the supply of housing and necessary related infrastructure, a more comprehensive set of devolved powers would allow boroughs to make the most of their assets and create greater capacity for development, for example:

• Local discretion over planning fees to allow councils to ensure better resourced and more effective planning services to optimise speed and quality of planning processes.

• More flexibility on the use of funds such as council Right to Buy receipts, receipts from sales from high value properties, and HRA borrowing to ensure more effective investment in new supply.

• New mechanisms to speed up the assembly and delivery of public sector land.

• Stronger levers to ensure planning permissions are implemented swiftly once granted.

• Receipts from the sale or development of public land in London should contribute to funding the infrastructure London needs.

SPENDING FORECAST CENTRAL v LOCAL

2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18

0Total public spending

Central gov department spending

London Boroughs’ core funding-70

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

Outurn Forecast

EmploymentLondon government should receive devolved national funding for employment support. This would result in better integration of mainstream employment services with other local support services and improve employment outcomes for all unemployed residents but especially for the very long term unemployed and jobseekers with complex needs. National programmes have not been able to deliver the specialist employment support needed for those who have been left out of the labour market as a result of health conditions and disabilities or having been in the criminal justice system. Greater local control over these service areas will improve performance for these people.

London Councils would expect the new Mayor to support the boroughs in:

• Leading the development and commissioning of the Work and Health Programme in London and to contribute additional resources to this programme to maximise its impact.

• Working with government to develop local hubs for employment support in London, encouraging the co-location and integration of these services across the capital.

SkillsThe Mayor and boroughs will build on recent announcements by government to secure further influence over the skills system in London to ensure Londoners have the skills they need to succeed in the jobs market, and that businesses have the skilled workers they need to grow.

London Councils is working with the Mayor to:

• Jointly lead the reform of adult skills provision in the capital, through the area review process, the development of pan-London and sub-regional skills strategies and negotiating a two tier system of devolution of the adult education budget in London with the government.

• Reform the skills system to follow any devolution of the adult education budget in London. This would include a movement towards a system focused on outcomes and to jointly lobby government for greater influence over advanced learning loans, careers, 16-19 education and apprenticeships.

Community Safety & JusticeBy enhancing strategic leadership of the criminal justice system in London, the Mayor and boroughs can deliver significant savings and reduce offending. London should be free to co-ordinate, commission and co-design across probation, community rehabilitation, youth offending and other areas of the justice system.

An integrated approach would ensure that local services can be aligned to provide the greatest impact and reduce high-harm offending. This is also an area with the potential to drive significant improvements in IT, joint working and communications. London’s established governance model, including the London Crime Reduction Board, could be the basis of enhanced arrangements that focus on improving the running of the overall Criminal Justice System in London.

London Councils would expect to see: • The Mayor and the boroughs co-commissioning

crime reduction services. • Devolution of crime reduction resources, thus

supporting boroughs’ critical role in integrating these services with other local services.

Health and CareIn December 2015, the Mayor of London, the boroughs, the 32 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), NHS England and Public Health England signed a devolution agreement to deliver better health for Londoners.

The agreement commits all partners to greater integration of services such as health and care to support Londoners to live healthier, more independent lives.

Strong Mayoral involvement with borough innovation and leadership on the ground has the potential to:

• Shift from reactive care to prevention, early intervention and care closer to home that maximises people’s independence and wellbeing.

• Transform health at three geographical levels – local, regional and pan-London – to tailor solutions to the different needs of people and places.

• Ensure rapid progress on tackling to the health challenges faced by London’s complex health and care systems.

LONDON MAYORAL BRIEFING

HOUSING

For more information: www.londoncouncils.gov.uk

Solution: Working within existing constraints, councils such as Lewisham have developed innovative solutions to fund the building of hundreds of new homes. Freeing local authorities from unncessary constraints on using existing assets and receipts would unlock the potential to build more of the homes Londoners need

EMPLOYMENT

Solution: Initiatives in Greenwich, Richmond and Newham, which enable social workers and NHS professionals to work alongside each other, have resulted in a consistent reduction in the numbers of people unable to leave hospital because their social care support is not in place

SKILLS

SchoolsLondon has faced sustained demand for school places for nearly a decade, with rising populations, spiralling building costs and a lack of available land placing increased pressure on London boroughs.

Our modelling estimates a need for an additional 113,000 new school places between 2015 and 2020. London represents 24 per cent of all places that need to be created nationally. While the secondary shortfall only makes up a small proportion of places needed in 2015/16 compared to primary, by 2019/20 the shortfall at secondary is actually larger than primary. This illustrates the impact that the rapid growth of the primary pupil population will not only eat into existing secondary capacity, but create a need to build new secondary school places.

To create the new places required, excluding land acquisition costs, London needs a further investment of £1.5 billion in school places funding by 2020, in addition to existing basic need allocations.

Unfortunately, to date, school places funding has not kept pace with the rising need and cost of school places. School funding for new places in London only met 59 per cent of the total cost to provide school places during 2010 to 2015. Consequently, a 41 per cent funding shortfall needed to be met in order to secure new school places to educate children in London’s state schools. London boroughs, as a direct result of the insufficient funding rate, have had to secure an additional £1 billion of funding to ensure there were sufficient school places.

A Better Place to LiveAir qualityPoor air quality is estimated to cause approximately 10,000 premature deaths per year in London.

London Councils would work with the Mayor to:

• Develop a new London-wide strategy for how London can achieve EU air quality limits by 2020 and continue to provide funding to support boroughs’ delivery of local air quality projects.

• Develop electric vehicle charging networks in response to increasing numbers of requests from residents for on-street charging for electric vehicles as a result of the rapid growth in this market.

WasteImproving waste disposal in London will make it easier for Londoners to recycle. We would want to explore options – including the potential for the devolution of landfill tax – for funding the development of new clean waste infrastructure with a focus on waste minimisation, including more emphasis on packaging.

InfrastructureWith 8,000 more Londoners every month we face a huge challenge to ensure that our infrastructure grows fast enough to support this growth. Above ground it is easy to see the need for more schools and health centres, better transport and public spaces that people can enjoy. Below ground the challenge is just as great. More local power generation is needed to head off black outs and more broadband is essential to keep London’s economy growing.

There are big challenges here for the Mayor and the boroughs to work on together. We must identify the large and the small scale building needs of the each part of the capital. We must collaborate in developing new ways of funding the unique growth in London’s population and its economy.

Our success in working together will underpin the success of the UK economy as a whole.

HOUSING

Challenge: For the past 30 years London’s housing supply has failed to match household growth in the capital, and 56,000 new homes a year would now need to be built in London just to keep pace with London’s booming population (in 2013/14 total completions were below 18,000).

Solution: Working within existing constraints, councils such as Lewisham have developed innovative solutions to fund the building of hundreds of new homes. Freeing local authorities from unnecessary constraints on using existing assets and receipts would unlock the potential to build more of the homes Londoners need.

KEY CHALLENGES

EMPLOYMENT

Challenge: 485,000 Londoners who would like employment are out of work, yet nationally designed employment support programmes are underperforming in the capital for Londoners with complex needs.

Solution: A locally commissioned Work and Health Programme in London and greater integration of Jobcentre Plus and borough services via local hubs.

HEALTH

Challenge: The NHS faces ongoing pressure with many NHS hospitals forced to declare deficits as they struggle to cope with demand.

Solution: Initiatives in Greenwich, Richmond and Newham, which enable social workers and NHS professionals to work alongside each other, have resulted in a consistent reduction in the numbers of people unable to leave hospital because their social care support is not in place.

SKILLS

Challenge: London’s employment rate remains lower than other regions and employers attribute 24 per cent of vacancies in the capital to skills shortages.

Solution: Building on recent announcements by government, devolution of skills responsibility to align provision with the needs of the capital’s businesses, demonstrated by the successful approach of the Opportunity Sutton Programme.

For more information: www.londoncouncils.gov.uk

LONDON MAYORAL BRIEFING

KEY FACTS

London has the highest rate of pupil growth of any region

London needs to build at least

56,000new homes each year, just to keep pace with population growth

More than

485,000Londoners who would like to work are unemployed or economically inactive

London local government’s total expenditure was

£21.9bn in 2014/15, including

£8.4bn on education and

£3.8bn on providing care services to Londoners

Today, more than 350,000 Londoners are living with diabetes -This number is projected to exceed 500,000 by 2025

Between now and 2020 more than

60% of the national growth of people with learning disabilities and people with mental health conditions will be in London