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London borough
London borough
	; The thirty-two London boroughs in England
Category	Local authority districts
Location	Greater London
Created by	London Government Act 1963
Created	1 April 1965;
Number	32
Possible types	Inner London (12); Outer London (20);
Possible status	City (1); Royal borough (3);
Populations	150,000–400,000
Areas	12–150 km2
Government	London borough council;

The London boroughs are the current 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London, England; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at the same time as Greater London on 1 April 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 (c. 33) and are a type of local government district. Twelve were designated as Inner London boroughs and twenty as Outer London boroughs. The City of London, the historic centre, is a separate ceremonial county and sui generis local government district that functions quite differently from a London borough. However, the two counties together comprise the administrative area of Greater London as well as the London Region, all of which is also governed by the Greater London Authority, under the Mayor of London.

The London boroughs have populations of between 150,000 and 400,000. Inner London boroughs tend to be smaller, in both population and area, and more densely populated than Outer London boroughs. The London boroughs were created by combining groups of former local government units. 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 (schools, waste management, social services, libraries), 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 2022, and the next elections due in 2026. The political make-up of London borough councils is dominated by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. Twenty-eight councils follow the leader and cabinet model of executive governance, while five have directly elected mayors (Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets). The City of London is instead governed by the City of London Corporation (and the Inner and Middle Temples, which are not governed by the City of London Corporation).

List

There are four boroughs that do not have "London Borough" in their official names: the City of Westminster, and the Royal Boroughs of Kingston upon Thames, Kensington and Chelsea, and Greenwich.

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.^[1] 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. Twelve 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 so designated primarily to continue the existence of an Inner London Education Authority, praised by official Opposition and government who further noted that unusually the former County of London's many small 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 continued to govern their own areas.^{[note 1]}

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.

London borough	Designation	Former areas
Camden	Inner	Hampstead (11a)	St Pancras (11b)	Holborn (11c)
Greenwich	Inner	Greenwich (22a)	Woolwich (part) (22b)
Hackney	Inner	Hackney (9a)	Shoreditch (9b)	Stoke Newington (9c)
Hammersmith^{[note 2]}	Inner	Hammersmith (4a)	Fulham (4b)
Islington	Inner	Islington (10a)	Finsbury (10b)
Kensington and Chelsea	Inner	Kensington (3a)	Chelsea (3b)
Lambeth	Inner	Lambeth (6a)	Wandsworth (part) (6b)
Lewisham	Inner	Lewisham (21a)	Deptford (21b)
Southwark	Inner	Bermondsey (7b)	Camberwell (7c)	Southwark (7a)
Tower Hamlets	Inner	Bethnal Green (8a)	Poplar (8c)	Stepney (8b)
Wandsworth	Inner	Battersea (5b)	Wandsworth (part) (5a)
Westminster	Inner	Paddington (2c)	St Marylebone (2b)	Westminster (2a)
Barking^{[note 3]}	Outer	Barking (part) (25a)	Dagenham (part) (25b)
Barnet	Outer	Barnet (31a)	East Barnet (31b)	Finchley (31d)	Hendon (31c)	Friern Barnet (31e)
Bexley	Outer	Bexley (23b)	Erith (23a)	Crayford (23c)	Chislehurst and Sidcup (part) (23d)
Brent	Outer	Wembley (12a)	Willesden (12b)
Bromley	Outer	Bromley (20c)	Beckenham (20b)	Orpington (20e)	Penge (20a)	Chislehurst and Sidcup (part) (20d)
Croydon	Outer	Croydon (19a)	Coulsdon and Purley (19b)
Ealing	Outer	Acton (13b)	Ealing (13a)	Southall (13c)
Enfield	Outer	Edmonton (30c)	Enfield (30a)	Southgate (30b)
Haringey	Outer	Hornsey (29b)	Tottenham (29c)	Wood Green (29a)
Harrow	Outer	Harrow (32)
Havering	Outer	Romford (24a)	Hornchurch (24b)
Hillingdon	Outer	Hayes and Harlington (33c)	Ruislip Northwood (33b)	Uxbridge (33a)	Yiewsley and West Drayton (33d)
Hounslow	Outer	Brentford and Chiswick (14c)	Feltham (14a)	Heston and Isleworth (14b)
Kingston upon Thames	Outer	Kingston upon Thames (16a)	Malden and Coombe (16b)	Surbiton (16c)
Merton	Outer	Mitcham (17c)	Merton and Morden (17b)	Wimbledon (17a)
Newham	Outer	West Ham (27a)	East Ham (27b)	Barking (part) (27c)	Woolwich (part) (27d)
Redbridge	Outer	Ilford (26a)	Wanstead and Woodford (26b)	Dagenham (part) (26c)	Chigwell (part) (26d)
Richmond upon Thames	Outer	Barnes (15a)	Richmond (15b)	Twickenham (15c)
Sutton	Outer	Beddington (18c)	Carshalton (18b)	Sutton and Cheam (18a)
Waltham Forest	Outer	Chingford (28a)	Leyton (28c)	Walthamstow (28b)

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 (GLC). 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 was used by the London Borough of Hammersmith (changed to Hammersmith and Fulham) on 1 April 1979 and the London Borough of Barking (changed to Barking and Dagenham) 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 realised 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.^[2] This was used in 1969 in the transfers of Knockholt in Bromley to Kent, and of Farleigh and Hooley in Croydon to Surrey. The Act also provided for transfers between London boroughs and neighbouring counties where there was consensus for the change between all the relevant local authorities. This provision was used to exchange two islands on the River Thames between Richmond upon Thames and Surrey. (See List of Greater London boundary changes.)

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.^[3] 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.^[4]

The London boroughs were incorporated using the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882.^[5] In the London boroughs the legal entity is not the council, as elsewhere in the country, but the inhabitants incorporated as a legal entity by royal charter (a process abolished elsewhere in England and Wales under the Local Government Act 1972). Thus, a London authority's official legal title is "The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of X" (or "The Lord Mayor and Citizens of the City of Westminster").^[6]

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 (sometimes abbreviated LBCs), 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.

Service	Greater London Authority	London borough councils
Education		Y
Housing	Y	Y
Planning applications		Y
Strategic planning	Y	Y
Transport planning	Y	Y
Passenger transport	Y
Highways	Y	Y
Police	Y
Fire	Y
Social services		Y
Libraries		Y
Leisure and recreation		Y
Waste collection		Y
Waste disposal		Y
Environmental health		Y
Revenue collection		Y

Shared services

Shared services are borough council services shared between two or more boroughs. Shared services were previously resisted due to councils guarding their authority. However, as the need for budget cuts in the late 2000s became apparent some councils have sought service mergers.^[7] Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham were due to merge their education services, including school admissions and transport, by 2011.^[8] 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.^[9] Lambeth and Southwark likewise expressed an interest in sharing services.^[10]

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^{[clarification needed]}, brought together to produce two broad assertions, for which there is little hard factual evidence.^[11] He argues that shared service projects fail (and often end up costing more than they hoped to save) because they cause a disruption to the service flow by moving the work to a central location, creating waste in hand-offs, rework and duplication, lengthening the time it takes to deliver a service and consequently creating failure demand (demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for a customer).^[12] Seddon referred directly to the so-called tri-borough shared services in an article in 2012.^[13]

Gallery of London-wide election results

Results across Greater London Boroughs at ward level.

2002 results map
2006 results map
2010 results map
2014 results map
2018 results map
2022 results map

Notes

^ Local government legislation makes special provision for the City of London Corporation, Inner Temple and Middle Temple to perform the functions of London borough councils in their areas.
^ Later renamed Hammersmith and Fulham.
^ Renamed Barking and Dagenham in 1980.

References

^ Sharpe, LJ (1961). The Report of The Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London.
^ London Government Act 1963 Section 6 (4)
^ "The Local Government Boundary Commission for England, The Boundaries of Greater London and The London Borough, Report 627" (PDF). Lgbce.org.uk. 1992. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
^ "The City and London Borough Boundaries Order 1993". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
^ "London Government Act 1963 (as amended)". legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 15 February 2024. The Municipal Corporations Act 1882 shall apply to every London borough
^ "Local Government Act 1933" (PDF). legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 15 February 2024. The municipal corporation of a borough shall [...] (a) in the case of a borough being a city, the mayor of which is entitled to bear the title of lord mayor, bear the name of the lord mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city; (b) in the case of any other borough being a city, bear the name of the mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city; and (c) in the case of any other borough, bear the name of the mayor,' aldermen and burgesses of the borough.
^ Jane Dudman (20 October 2010) Public sector cuts will not hit 'back office' hardest, The Guardian
^ Jaimie Kaffash (7 July 2010) London boroughs to share education services, Public Finance
^ Pickles backs plan to merge Tory councils, BBC News, 22 October 2010
^ "Lambeth and Southwark councils to merge some services under Labour plan". London-se1.co.uk. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
^ "Why do we believe in economy of scale?". Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
^ Systems Thinking in the Public Sector, John Seddon, Page 57.
^ "Shared illusions | Public Finance Opinion". Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 13 July 2012.