Greater London Authority - Purpose

Purpose

The GLA is responsible for the strategic administration of the 1579 kmĀ² (610 sq. miles) of Greater London. It shares local government powers with the councils of 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. It was created to improve the coordination between the local authorities in Greater London, and the Mayor of London's role is to give London a single person to represent it. The Mayor proposes policy and the GLA's budget, and makes appointments to the capital's strategic executive such as Transport for London and the London Development Agency. The primary purposes of the London Assembly is to hold the Mayor of London to account by scrutiny of his or her actions and decisions. The assembly must also accept or amend the Mayor's budget on an annual basis. The GLA is based at City Hall, a new building on the south bank of the River Thames, next to Tower Bridge.

The GLA is different from the Corporation of the City of London with its largely ceremonial Lord Mayors, which controls only the square mile of the City, London's chief financial centre. While the GLA has a modern constitution, the organisation of the City of London has barely changed since the Middle Ages.

Read more about this topic:  Greater London Authority

Famous quotes containing the word purpose:

    A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
    Simone Weil (1909–1943)

    Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.
    Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)

    Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)