Issues of Importance:The scrutiny role of the

London Assemblyby Mark Sandford and Lucinda Maer

June 2004

ISBN: 1 903903 33 9

First Published June 2004

Copyright © The Constitution Unit

Published by The Constitution UnitSchool of Public Policy, UCL29–30 Tavistock SquareLondonWC1H 9QU

Phone: 020 7679 4977Fax: 020 7679 4978

constitution@ucl.ac.ukwww.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/

This report is sold subject to the condition that is shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwisecirculated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is publishedand without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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ContentsExecutive Summary 5

Foreword 7

Introduction 9

The work of London Assembly committees 11

Classifying committee reports 15

Planning work and selecting topics 17

Methods of investigation 21

Oral evidence 25

Report drafting, publication and follow-up 29

Recommendations 33

Appendix 1: London Assembly scrutiny classification 35

Appendix 2: London Assembly members, 2000–04 39

Appendix 3: Other outputs from Effective Scrutiny 43

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Executive Summary• The small range of responsibilities of the Greater London Authority permit the London Assemblyto take a close interest in the work of two of its functional bodies, the London Development Agency andTransport for London. Scrutiny of the other two functional bodies, the London Fire and EmergencyPlanning Authority and the Metropolitan Police Authority, has been almost non-existent, reflectingpolitical tensions which are abetted by the presence of Assembly members on their boards.

• The Assembly currently (before the 2004 election) uses a range of standing subject committeesto carry out scrutiny. This is its third committee system: it is not obliged to use any particular structure,and the structure may change again following the 2004 election.

• Much of the Assembly’s scrutiny work falls into the category of ‘external scrutiny’ and hence canonly influence, not command, the behaviour of other organisations. Links between the Assembly andMayor to achieve a joint approach in this regard have been limited so far: occasional joint scrutinies orjoint report launches have taken place.

• The Assembly’s statutory ability to investigate “issues of importance to London” has permitted adiverse range of subjects of reports. This has also encouraged chairs, committees and scrutinyofficers to use an innovative range of scrutiny methods, including websites, site visits, reporters, andconsultation.

• The Assembly’s four-strong media team is kept closely involved in the selection of subjects ofscrutiny reports and advises committees on potential media interest. This staffing resource helps theAssembly gain far wider coverage for scrutiny than might otherwise be the case.

• Many Assembly scrutiny processes follow the ‘classical scrutiny’ model developed in the Houseof Commons: written evidence, followed by oral evidence, deliberations, and the production of areport. However, London Assembly reports are shorter and punchier than traditional Commons selectcommittee reports.

• As at other tiers of government, respondents indicated that questions in evidence sessionswere often prefaced by position statements and were often over-long: these were thought to beparticularly ineffective where committees sought to put a witness under pressure.

• Reports, and recommendations, were sometimes finalised by e-mail communication ratherthan in committee meetings. This occasionally led to very long delays in publication due to membersbeing unable to agree on the content of reports.

• The scrutiny officer team maintains a grid of scrutinies, indicating planned and previouspublication dates, and a list of the impacts that scrutiny reports have had. Part of the GLA businessplan relates to performance targets for the scrutiny committees.

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Foreword1. This briefing forms part of the Constitution Unit’s research into effective scrutiny. The researchis taking place from 2002–2004, and will examine the practice of scrutiny at all levels of government:national, devolved, regional and local. This briefing is the fifth output of the project (see Appendix 3 fordetails of other outputs).

2. The briefing outlines and analyses the practice of scrutiny in the London Assembly. The firstterm of the Assembly was analysed (May 2000 to June 2004).1 However, the Assembly changed itsscrutiny system twice in its first two years of operation.2 The first two committee systems were verydifferent from the third (which has lasted from March 2002 to June 2004). In particular, under thesecond system it was standard practice to convene an ad hoc committee for each new scrutinyenquiry. The third system, with eight standing committees, resembles scrutiny committees in othertiers of government far more. The Greater London Authority Act, however, does not mandate anyparticular committee system—indeed, it does not prescribe that any specific committees must be setup by the Assembly (unlike the Scotland and Government of Wales Acts).

3. The Assembly’s committee remits are set by its Standing Orders. We studied the work of the‘subject committees’, omitting the Business Management and Appointments Committee and Audit.We focused on seven case study committee enquiry reports (see Table 2). Appendix 1 provides aclassification of all the reports produced in the Assembly’s first term. Our case study enquiries werechosen to cover a range of the types of report identified by our classification.

4. Research took place through studying the final reports of each enquiry. Where available,verbatim transcripts of hearings were studied, as were meeting minutes. Finally, some 20 interviewswith members, scrutiny officers,3 officials and witnesses who had been involved with the case studyenquiries were carried out. Non-attributed quotes from the respondents are used in the analysisbelow.

5. The briefing begins by proposing a classification of scrutiny enquiries. This is intended not as aset of hard boundaries, but as a tool for analysing the balance of type of review carried out bycommittees. The briefing then examines each of the elements of conducting an enquiry, roughly in theorder in which they take place. For each element, the briefing sets out the procedures observed in thecase study enquiries, then analyses the rationale for those procedures, both independently and usingrespondents’ assessment of them. Bulleted recommendations are then listed for the successfulpractice of each element of scrutiny.

6. We would like to thank all of the officers and elected members of the London Assembly and inother bodies who took the time to be interviewed on a topic which, in most cases, was not at the headof their list of concerns. In particular we would like to thank Richard Horsman, director of the LondonAssembly secretariat, and the scrutiny officers at the London Assembly, without whom the projectwould not have been possible. Responsibility for the contents of this report remains ours alone.

1 The May 2004 elections to the GLA were delayed until June to coincide with elections to the EuropeanParliament, which run on a five-year cycle instead of the GLA’s four years.

2 See Lucinda Maer and Mark Sandford, The development of scrutiny in the UK: a review of procedures andpractice, Constitution Unit, London, 2004, pp 13–15, available at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/files/devt_scrutiny_uk.pdf , for details of the changes made at this time and the rationales behind them.

3 In the London Assembly, the term ‘scrutiny officers’ is used to refer to staff who manage the process of ascrutiny enquiry, arranging agendas, witnesses, suggesting questions and drafting final reports—what wouldbe called a ‘clerk’ in the Westminster or devolved assembly context.

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7. The Greater London Authority Act passedthrough Parliament in 1999 to set up the GreaterLondon Authority (GLA). The GLA consists of anexecutive Mayor, elected by the SupplementaryVote system (SV), and a 25–member Assembly,elected through the Additional Member system.14 of the Assembly members hold first-past-the-post constituency seats, and 11 are elected on aLondon-wide ‘top-up’ basis.

8. The separation of the political executivefrom the ‘back-bench’ members in the GLA was anew departure in British local or regionalgovernment. In 1999–2000 there wereexpectations that many or most English andWelsh local authorities would follow London andestablish executive mayoralties, as permittedunder the Local Government Act 2000. In theevent only eleven did so. The regionalassemblies currently being proposed by theGovernment will also not follow this pattern,having a more conventional cabinet governmentstructure. The GLA’s structure will remainunusual in the UK context for some time, and itmay therefore provide answers to questionsabout the effectiveness of formally splitting theexecutive and back-bench responsibilities, asagainst combining them as in most of localgovernment.

9. The first elections to the GLA were held on4 May 2000. Ken Livingstone, the Labour formerleader of the Greater London Council and LabourMP, was elected as an independent mayor,beating the official Labour Party candidate, FrankDobson. Livingstone subsequently rejoined theLabour Party on 6 January 2004. The Assemblyelections returned 9 Labour, 9 Conservative, 4Liberal Democrat and 3 Green Assemblymembers. All of the constituency seats were wonby Labour or the Conservatives.

10. The vast majority of executive powers inthe GLA are held by the Mayor. The Mayorappoints the board members of four ‘functionalbodies’ which carry out the majority of hisexecutive responsibilities. These are Transportfor London (TfL); the London Fire andEmergency Planning Authority (LFEPA); theMetropolitan Police Authority (MPA); and theLondon Development Agency (LDA). The Mayormust also draw up eight strategy documentssetting wide-ranging goals for policy in London.

These are listed in the far right column of Table 1.The Spatial Development Strategy (renamed theLondon Plan) is of particular importance as it hasstatutory force on the London boroughs.

11. The Assembly has very few executivepowers. It has a role in setting the GLA budget: itcan reject the Mayor’s budget proposals with atwo-thirds majority (17 out of 25 members). Itapproves staff appointments in the GLA. Also,members of the Assembly must be appointed totwo of the functional bodies—LFEPA and MPA.This creates a confusion between Assemblymembers having an executive role in themanagement of those two bodies, and the factthat, as Assembly members, they are expectedto scrutinise the functional bodies generally.

12. The concept of an elected body whichsolely carried out ‘scrutiny’ was new in 1999–2000, and the Assembly has therefore hadconsiderable latitude to define the term. The GLAAct requires the Assembly to hold the Mayor toaccount and to examine “issues of importance toLondoners”. This latter requirement occurs insection 59 (2) (e) of the Act: it is in effect anenabling clause, allowing the Assembly to spreadits coverage of subjects very widely. Table 1demonstrates that many of the Assembly’sscrutiny committees deal with subjects overwhich the Mayor himself has no power.

13. The Assembly also scrutinises the Mayorthrough Mayor’s Question Time, a public eventwhich must take place 10 times per year.Committees also invite senior executives fromthe functional bodies to give evidence about theirwork.

Introduction

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14. The Greater London Authority Act 1999 didnot prescribe most of the remits of the Assemblyscrutiny committees. The Budget Committee isof importance to the Assembly in that theAssembly’s strongest (and really its only)sanction against the Mayor is to reject his budgetby a two-thirds majority.

15. Table 1 indicates the committee structureused by the London Assembly since March2002.4 It does not include details of any scrutinyof the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and theLondon Fire and Emergency Planning Authority(LFEPA). Members are appointed to their boardsaccording to the proportionality of the Assembly.5

The work of London Assembly committees

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4 See Maer and Sandford (2004) for an account of the previous two systems and the changeover process to thethird.

5 On each board Assembly members collectively have a majority of one over other board members who mustbe appointed from elsewhere.

In other words, Assembly members have anexecutive role. There has so far been no move toscrutinise the work of these bodies—the PublicServices Committee, which would be theobvious home of such a scrutiny, has not taken alead on the subject. Any such scrutiny wouldlikely be hedged around with political sensitivitieswithin the party groups on the Assembly, thoughwith political will it should be possible to design ameans for such a scrutiny to take place.

16. Table 1 also demonstrates adisproportional allocation of committee chairs inthe Assembly. Liberal Democrats hold threechairships, despite having only four Assembly

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members. The Green Party, with threemembers, do not hold any scrutiny chairs ordeputy chairs: a proportional allocation wouldaward them at least one chair and deputy chair ofa scrutiny committee. The disproportionality canbe partly traced to a Lib Dem-Labour deal afterthe 2000 election. Unlike in the devolvedassemblies, there is no obligation in the Act or inStanding Orders to award chairs or deputy chairsproportionately.

17. The London Assembly scrutiny teamnumbers 13, covering 8 committees. In additionthere are 8 committee services officers,providing administrative backup and assistanceon scrutinies. The Assembly has a good level ofresource per committee compared to most localauthorities but is some way behind the devolvedassemblies.6 Its resources and capacity are tinyin comparison to those available to the Mayor.Hence the Assembly needs to focus itsresources at the points of maximum potentialimpact; use any available means of extending thetime available to them to scrutinise; and to usethe full range of means of influence, besidesformal meetings and hearings.

Other forms of scrutiny18. The scrutiny role of the Assembly does nottake place solely through the scrutinycommittees. A Mayor’s Question Time (MQT) isheld every month, where the full Assembly hasthe opportunity to question the Mayor over a 2–3hour period on recent performance and futureplans. Information obtained through the scrutinyprocess which may be relevant to MQT may bebrought to members’ attention by scrutinyofficers, and members may then use theinformation to interrogate the Mayor.

19. The links between MQT and the committeescrutiny process are varied. Scrutiny officershave attended MQT and examined transcripts,and occasionally have suggested possiblescrutiny topics deriving from pieces ofinformation which came to light in MQT.

20. However, both MQT and plenary Assemblysessions are regarded by members as the partypolitical arenas of the Assembly. Respondentsindicated that questions to the Mayor, and

contributions to debate, are far more partisanthan in committee sessions. One membersuggested that committee members shouldorganise their contributions to plenary moresystematically where matters relevant to thatcommittee were being discussed, but felt thatparty politics prevented this from happening.Plenary Assembly sessions could be used moreto present a united Assembly view on Mayoralpolicies. Party politics will always make this adifficult balance to achieve, but it should bepossible to resolve that the Mayor should thinkagain on certain issues, even if there is noagreement in the Assembly on what his policyshould be.

The Mayor’s institutional links toscrutiny21. The institutional structure of the GLA allowsthe Assembly very little coercive power over theMayor. The ability to reject the budget, by a two-thirds majority, is the only sanction available to it.Assembly support, likewise, is not of substantialpractical value to enable the Mayor to deliver hisprogramme, other than being useful at a publicrelations level. The Assembly can offer the Mayorfew financial or organisational incentives to agreewith it.

22. It is possible that different polit icalarithmetic on the Assembly could enhance theimportance of the ‘two-thirds power’ in thesecond term of the GLA. If the Labour Party wereunable to vote the budget through via (theremaining) one-third of the seats, the Assemblycollectively might be in a far stronger negotiatingposition over policy. But this would not give theAssembly regular influence over day-to-daydecision-making. The Assembly cannot reversea decision of the Mayor. Like select committeesin the House of Commons, it must achieveimpacts through powerful argument, evidenceand influence—in particular through mediaattention.

23. The existence of an independent Mayor formost of the first term of the GLA has stronglycoloured its experience. The effects shouldbecome clearer following the 2004 election,when a party candidate is likely to win. Anindependent mayor is likely to face less party

6 The devolved assemblies have, on average, around four staff for each subject committee, including researchspecialists and administrators.

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pressure to actively co-operate with theassembly generally.

24. A number of the issues and policy areas inwhich the Assembly has an interest are alsooutside the control of the Mayor. The Mayor mustwrite strategies which he has no power or moneyto enforce in a number of policy fields. The oddconstitutional settlement of the GLA in this regardhas been discussed elsewhere.7

25. This means that the Assembly hasproduced many reports which fall into thecategory of ‘external scrutiny’. They makerecommendations to organisations outside theGLA’s purview, and as such can be difficult toenforce. Most participants in the scrutinyprocess perceived a clear divide betweenscrutiny of the ‘GLA family’ (the Mayor and thefunctional bodies) and scrutiny concerningexternal matters. It is rare for external scrutiny tobe perceived as a process which is aimed athelping the Mayor influence external matters:dialogue between the Mayor and the Assembly inthis regard has been limited up till now. TheMayor himself has occasionally shared theAssembly’s platform at a scrutiny launch, wherehe has agreed with the conclusions of anexternal report.

26. One way of strengthening external scrutinyreports would be for the Assembly to work jointlywith the Mayor on producing conclusions,lobbying external organisations and bending thepolicy of the organisations within the ‘GLA family’(i.e. the functional bodies). This has happened sofar on one scrutiny process (Access to PrimaryCare), where mayoral representatives andAssembly members both sat on the scrutinycommittee.8 However, there has been no widermove by either the Mayor or the Assembly toadopt a partnership approach in this regard.

27. Many Assembly members also sit asLondon borough council lors. This hasimplications for the time they are able to spendon London Assembly business. Three Assemblymembers are working peers in the House ofLords, and still others find their positions on the

MPA or the LFEPA take up substantial amounts oftime—a problem that does not appear to havebeen anticipated by the GLA’s creators. Thechairs of these bodies, and other Assemblymembers who chair Mayoral task groups, havetended to be less active in scrutiny than theircolleagues.

28. Those members who are able to give timeand attention to the scrutiny process have manyideas: the Assembly has produced over 70reports in its first term, which is a large output forsuch a small representative body. Notably, noneof the party group leaders have secured thechairship of a scrutiny committee: this mayindicate that scrutiny is perceived as a second-order activity after the more regular business ofparty debate.

29. Membership of the Assembly’scommittees is decided by the political parties.There has been a limited amount of turnover inmembership so far.9 This has advantages forpreserving the collective memory of committees:even though the present committee structure isonly two years old, some committees (especiallytransport) find themselves frequently returning tosubjects, and members are able to draw on theirpast experience within the committee.

Recommendations• Assembly Standing Orders should require

that polit ical proportionality on theAssembly is taken into account whenallocating committee chairships. TheAssembly is not an old-style local authority,where chairing committees representedpower. In particular, minority parties (suchas the Green Party) should be entitled tochairships of subject committees shouldthey wish to take them up and should thepolitical arithmetic justify it.

• A more systematic approach to externalscrutiny could be considered, where theMayor and the Assembly might worktogether on a scrutiny and later lobby jointlyfor action outside the GLA based on thescrutiny’s conclusions. Access to Primary

7 See Greer and Sandford (2003), Travers (2004)8 This committee had to be officially constituted as an advisory committee.9 Four of the ‘top-up’ seats, in the London-wide constituency via the Additional Member system, have changed

hands during the first term (two Labour, one Liberal Democrat, one Green). When a top-up member resigns,he or she is replaced by the next member on the party list (submitted at the time of the 2000 election),without a by-election.

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Care demonstrated the potential of thisapproach.

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30. There is no agreed typology of scrutinycommittee work either in the GLA or other tiers ofgovernment, though there is anacknowledgement that there are different kindsof work a committee can do:

“The two obvious forms are scrutinising theactivities of some body and judging itsperformance against those activities…. Andon the other hand one which looks at thepossibilities for future policy development,more outward looking scrutiny. And thereare various hybrids on the outskirts ofthose.”

31. In Scrutiny under Devolution we attempteda classification of committee reports in thedevolved assemblies. This typology was notintended as a group of hard and fast categories,but as a means to identifying the range of workthat committees can carry out. We haveattempted to produce a similar classification forthe London Assembly in Appendix 1.

32. Table 2 shows our case study enquiriesand the classification that we have applied tothem. We have attempted to apply the typologydeveloped in Scrutiny under Devolution toscrutiny in the Assembly: the main difference isthe existence in the Assembly of the category of‘issues of importance to Londoners’. Thisderives from section 59 (2) (e) of the GLA Act,which states that “the powers of the Assemblyinclude in particular power to investigate, andprepare reports about…any other matters whichthe Assembly considers to be of importance toGreater London”.

33. We have deliberately chosen reports whichwere completed towards the end of the first termof the GLA. This is to avoid using reports whichwere begun under the previous committeesystem (running from 2001–02), on which mostenquiries were carried out by small, specially-convened committees.

34. The list of scrutiny reports in Appendix 1indicates that the Assembly returns to similarsubjects on many occasions. This tends tooccur with ‘internal scrutiny’, of the functionalbodies or of Mayoral decisions. It is inevitable, forinstance, that congestion charging would bescrutinised three to four times in the first term, asan entirely new and untried policy of nationalinterest.

Classifying committee reports

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Box 1: A typology of scrutiny• Strategic policy review: these are large-scale forward-looking reviews into widely-

drawn policy areas. Often they cut across traditional policy subjects. By their nature,these reviews normally examine recent policy and practice as well as looking forward.

• Forward policy proposal: these focus on smaller-scale issues or policies, underdevelopment by the Mayor or by outside bodies. These may be inspired by proposed ordraft legislation.

• Event enquiry: These are backward-looking reviews of one-off events. The ‘disasterreview’ comes into this category. These reviews are rarer than may be thought, thoughthey often offer good press coverage due to their topical quality.

In each of these categories, we have also subdivided into ‘internal’ and ‘external’ scrutiny. Thisdistinction is clearly made within the Assembly, and affects quite strongly the approach taken toeach scrutiny process.

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Setting the workplan35. Following the reorganisation of the scrutinyfunction in mid-2002, a very systematicapproach to scrutiny has been put in place in theAssembly. A Scrutiny Business Plan has beenestablished, giving each committee a target ofproducing at least two reports a year. So far thistarget has been easily exceeded. Quarterlyreports on progress towards targets in the planare made to the Business Management andAppointments Committee (BMAC). Thesecretariat also maintains a matrix listingcommittees and their forthcoming reports, thusensuring that reports are not all published andlaunched at the same time.

36. The quarterly reports to BMAC includedetails of how the scrutiny process contributes tothe GLA’s statutory requirement to promoteequality. Each scrutiny process is ‘equality-proofed’ to ensure that it either contributes to ordoes not detract from this duty. The reports alsogive details of the impacts resulting from thescrutiny process (discussed later).

37. A unique aspect of the Assembly’s planningof scrutiny is the involvement of the MediaRelations team at almost all stages of theprocess. The press and media team are co-located with the scrutiny officers within City Hall.They will be consulted on likely timings of reportlaunches, and may hold reports back if two withgood media potential are targeted for publicationin the same week. The media team will alsoadvise at the scoping stage on the likely mediaconsequences of different approaches to asubject—although committees do notautomatically take their advice if it cuts acrosscommittee priorities. The potential for goodmedia hooks can be factored in to the reportearly:

“An important part of scrutiny is mediacoverage. You need to get the mediainvolved right from early on if you want tohave greater impact.”

38. Evidence from other tiers of governmentindicates that external scrutiny must be handleddifferently, as its success depends on buildingrelationships with those scrutinised—who arerarely under any obligation to attend scrutiny

sessions. But the distinction filters through, inLondon, to the conduct of meetings:

“There’s a different flavour in London—when it’s officials from the [GLA] group,everyone’s polite and [they] try to give asgood an account as they can, but membersmight be tempted to give them a bit of a hardtime on occasion.”

39. Issues of importance to Londoners areprioritised more by some committees thanothers. The Transport and EconomicDevelopment committees, being concerned tomonitor the executive powers of the agencies intheir remit, have less time to cover externalissues. These committees also tend to be moresubject to the pressure of events thancommittees dealing with external issues such ashealth and the environment. Issues such as theChancery Lane derailment, for instance, areextremely topical and demand a quick responsefrom the Assembly. This often leads to a quickreport, with a few witnesses only, at perhaps oneor two evidence sessions, together withbackground research by scrutiny officers.Releasing the report when the issue is still topicalis vital, to ensure that the Assembly influencespublic debate.

40. The committees also carry out a number ofvery short-term scrutinies, which may or may notlead to a published report. These ‘scrutinies’ mayconsist merely of a questioning session with aMayoral adviser for one hour, for instance.Monitoring of this kind, which is not part of a widerenquiry, is uncommon in the devolvedassemblies, but it is practised much more bylocal authorities. An important part of thecommittees’ role is to keep in touch withdevelopments in their area.

41. Alternatively, very short reports may beproduced following single-meeting scrutinies.Two of our case studies, A Damp Squib and thescrutiny of the Thames foreshore and path, fallinto this category. The former was convenedrapidly in response to the Mayor’s failure toprovide any entertainment in central London onNew Year’s Eve 2002. The report was critical of alack of forward planning by the Mayor and hisadvisers, in particular in the light of similardifficulties the previous year. A single evidence

Planning work and selecting topics

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session was held and a short and punchy reportproduced. Because of time restrictions, this typeof report is less easily produced by committeeswhich have functional bodies to scrutinise. Thismethod is popular when a committee seeks tohold the Mayor to account over a particular issue:

“Some of the stuff looking at what theMayor does is probably more likely to beshort and sharp—some information’s cometo light, members are unhappy about it, andthey want to make their views clear to theMayor.”

42. Each scrutiny committee meets fortnightlywhilst the Assembly is in session, though whereoral evidence sessions are being planned morefrequent meetings are sometimes held. At thebeginning of each year some slots for scrutinymeetings are left empty, so that the timetable candeal with sudden events. These slots are notalways filled, but most respondents indicatedthat most committees (some more than others)have a heavy workload and do not often cancelmeetings for want of business.

43. The origin of topics in the scrutiny forwardplan is largely internal to the Assembly.Members—predominantly chairs—and officerswill suggest topics, which are approved annually.Constituency issues can occasionally becomethe subject of scrutinies: flooding was anexample of this. The committee chairs are veryinfluential in the forward work plan of thecommittee. There are few formal mechanismsfor co-ordinating with any work that Londonboroughs may be doing, or for obtaining formalstakeholder input from, for instance, the LondonCivic Forum:

“Some consult very widely and come up withsome quite interesting topics as a result.Others—the ones monitoring the GLAgroup—it’s slightly different. You’ve gotsome fairly obvious topics to look at—driven by events and major spendingplans.”

“One of the advantages of having anassembly with [only] 25 members is thatthere is more than enough work to goaround, and this has meant that it has beenrelatively easy to get a piece of scrutinydone which you have an interest in. If wewere a larger body it would be harder…. Anappropriate thing would be to look at long

lists and the pluses and minuses and thepolitical potential and benefits which comeout of those. We have rather short-cut thatby going for member preferences.”

44. The Standing Orders of the Assembly donot oblige committees to carry out regular orshort-term business in the manner of thedevolved assemblies. Committees in thosebodies must regularly scrutinise non-departmental public bodies and secondarylegislation (amongst other things), which canoften crowd out attempts to establish their ownagenda. The London Assembly must scrutinisestrategies (but chooses to do this throughsubject committees), and under section 42 (1) ofthe GLA Act the Mayor must consult theAssembly on all statutory strategies. But theseresponsibilities still leave the Assembly’scommittees very free by comparison to devolvedand national institutions.

45. The Budget committee, whose workloadrevolves around the annual budget cycle, is anexception to the above point. It invites all of thefunctional bodies per quarter to present amonitoring report, and the Transport andEconomic Development committees also takequarterly reports from their respective functionalbodies. As implied in the quote above, thosecommittees have executive bodies to monitor,and thus have less time to undertake scrutiniesinto issues of importance to Londoners.

46. The requirement on the Assembly toinvestigate issues of importance to Londonersfunctions as a statutory entitlement to look intoany subject. Interview indicated that this aim—which is also a means for the Assembly to makeitself accountable, legitimate and relevant to theelectorate—was taken seriously by membersand officers alike:

“A major constraint is identifying an issuethat affects all 32 London boroughs, ratherthan homing in on one aspect of health thataffects one borough.”

47. Each committee has a scrutiny officer, whowill draw up terms of reference and a timetable indialogue with the committee chair for eachsubject that has been agreed. Respondentsindicated that the shape of any given enquiry—the number of evidence sessions, type ofevidence invited etc.—was not subject to a clearrationale—“an art rather than a science”, as one

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put it. The scrutiny manager and chair havealmost total discretion to shape the enquiry asthey see fit. Ordinary members of the committeeare not consulted in detail at the planning stage:they have an opportunity to input when the planhas been drafted.

48. Latterly, scrutiny officers have presumed infavour of terms of reference covering smaller,manageable topics. Evidence-taking for mostscrutiny processes does not last for more than4–5 sessions. Similarly, very few of theAssembly’s scrutiny reports are 100–pagetomes on the House of Commons model. Thereport into Access to Primary Care wasunusually long, but partly this was because“health professionals did the scoping, instead ofscrutiny professionals…[but] the people withinthe scrutiny team who could have said ‘this is toobroad’ could not have known because they didn’thave the health knowledge.”

49. The shortness of the scrutiny processesreflects pressures on time. Scrutiny committeescould always do more than they have time to do,which means that their reports can never beexhaustive contributions to a subject:

“It’s a bit like sketching against amasterpiece oil painting…. You have to do afairly fleeting scrutiny and pick your targetswithin it. I think that is probably the natureof the political process.”

50. Informal links to boroughs exist: manyAssembly members are also boroughcouncil lors (some leaders, some back-benchers) and a few ad hoc committees haverecently been established between the Assemblyand the Association of London Government(representing the boroughs). Under the GLA Actthe status of joint committees can only beadvisory to the Assembly. The Review of LondonGovernance (beginning in February 2004) is oneexample; a scrutiny into the London AmbulanceService (relating to the health scrutiny role of theLondon boroughs and the work of the Assembly’sHealth Committee) is another.

51. Respondents indicated that it was relativelyrare for the Mayor, or members of his team, toexpress strong opinions about the choice of aparticular subject or approach by the Assembly.There was no evidence of attempted interferencewith the committees’ job or discretion. This waseven true of the joint scrutiny, Access to Primary

Care: one Mayoral adviser sat on the jointcommittee but did not attempt to dominateproceedings or drive the Mayor’s viewpointthrough discussions. Some respondentsindicated that the Mayor is occasionally irritatedat the conclusions of scrutiny reports, but thisdoes not appear to have translated into anyattempt to interfere with the process.

52. Similarly, the problem of ‘executive pre-emption’ which we encountered at other tiers—where executive-side officers review policy at thesame time as a scrutiny committee and henceupstage the committee’s opportunity to influencepolicy—appears to be more or less absent fromthe GLA. The fact that the Mayor’s office andfunctional bodies are much smaller, bothabsolutely and in proportion to the Assemblycommittees’ resources, than at other tiers ofgovernment may be a contributory factor. It iseasier for the Transport Committee, for instance,to monitor the whole of Transport for London’swork than the range of transport powers of theScottish Parliament.

Strategies53. Scrutiny of the eight Mayoral strategies ismandated in the GLA Act. Although the strategiesrepresent the Mayor’s only formal influence overseveral policy areas, evidence indicates that theyare not regarded as particularly significant eitherby the Mayor or Assembly members. The draftCultural Strategy was scrutinised very quicklydue to long delays on the Mayor’s side inproducing the draft. Many of the strategies havetaken most of the first term to be produced (partlydue to onerous consultation procedures) andhave been scrutinised in draft before their finalpublication. One respondent suggested:

“People talk about mayoral strategies a lot.The London Plan’s extremely important,because the boroughs have to follow it….Some of the other strategies, to be honest,..they’re aspirational, they don’t really meanvery much. You can have a discussionaround them, views around the table, butwhen it comes to it there aren’t a lot ofpowers to promote the strategies…. I don’tthink they should be a focus.”

54. With the re-election of the current Mayor,the strategies will play a less prominent role inthe second term of the GLA. Emphasis will shiftto scrutinising the delivery of the strategies. The

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Cultural Strategy, for instance, can then becomea baseline for the Mayor’s cultural activities, bywhich his funding decisions wil l bebenchmarked:

“Another reason why our focus haschanged is because in the first couple ofyears we were very busy scrutinising theMayor’s developing strategies…. Now thatis out of the way we can be more outwardlooking in our approach.”

55. The Mayor has tended to l inkrecommendations within strategy documents toexecutive powers within the GLA familywhenever possible. This is reflected in theapproach of the Assembly to scrutiny of issues ofimportance to Londoners:

“Normally, if you can, you raise an issuewhich will impact on the strategy. You don’twant it to be completely outside [theMayor’s power]—you want to do somethingwhere you can make recommendationswithin the GLA family.”

56. The Assembly will also occasionally holdseminars on potential future policy issues—arecent example being a seminar on trams inLondon. This has affinities with the reports whichwe classify as ‘forward policy proposals’. Theaim is to bring together elected representativesand a range of experts, and to produce adiscussion paper which may influence theforward planning of an agency or agencies.

MPA and LFEPA57. Scrutiny of the MPA and the LFEPA takesplace only to a very limited degree. Seniorofficers and the chair are invited to theAssembly’s investigation into the Mayor’sbudget, and may give their views on the Mayor’sspending plans. They will occasionally be invitedback as part of the budget monitoring process.However, no scrutiny has yet taken place on anissue falling within their remits. This seems anextraordinary omission for bodies which spend£2.6 billion and £300 million respectively. ThePublic Services Committee, which came intobeing with the third committee structure in March2002, was created partly with the aim ofremedying this, but it has so far failed to do so.

58. Respondents indicated that both the MPAand LFEPA are run like old-style (i.e. pre-Local

Government Act 2000) local authorities, withLondon Assembly members sitting not only asboard members but on a variety of committees.This follows from the way the bodies are set up inthe GLA Act. Where Assembly members havecommittee positions within these two authoritiesand similar committee positions within theLondon Assembly (for instance, relating tobudgetary matters), lines of accountability areblurred. The chairs of MPA and LFEPA inparticular are heavily involved and well-informedof the state of each organisation, and somerespondents regarded this itself as an adequateform of scrutiny.

Recommendations• Annual scrutiny plans could be more

closely co-ordinated with issues of interestto the Association of London Government.The development of the London ScrutinyOfficers’ network and the associatednetwork of members facilitates this. It hasalready begun with scrutiny of issues suchas the Ambulance Service.

• Committees concerned with externalmatters could establish regular monitoringsessions with non-departmental publicbodies—for example, the CultureCommittee could review the London regionof the Arts Council and Sport England, andthe Environment Committee couldexamine the Environment Agency. Theseagencies cannot be compelled to attendsessions examining their annual reports,but they already co-operate with subject-based scrutinies.

• Committees should, in the second term,bear the aspirations of Mayoral strategiesin mind when scoping scrutinies. InRegional Chambers, scrutiny processesoften focus on discrete parts of regionaleconomic strategies: the Assembly couldenhance the value of the strategies bysubjecting them to similar rigour in London.

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59. At other tiers of government, we haveobserved a style of carrying out enquiries whichwe termed ‘classical scrutiny’.10 This essentiallyderives its methods from practice in the House ofCommons’s select committees, which dateback to 1979 in their present form. Writtenevidence is invited through writing to a list ofstandard consultees, held by the scrutinysecretariat. Oral evidence hearings, in a formalsetting, are then held with a sub-set of thosecontributing written evidence. The enquiry willend with an oral evidence session with ministers,and a detailed report and long l ist ofrecommendations will be produced.

60. Local authorit ies and the devolvedassemblies have been anxious to try to moveaway from classical scrutiny. Methods used haveincluded more informal meetings, site visits,background research by scrutiny officers,opinion polling, and use of the Internet. TheLondon Assembly has tried all of these, thoughwritten and oral evidence is still used in the vastmajority of enquiries. Consultees on Assemblyscrutiny enquiries are monitored for theircontribution to diversity, as part of the GLA’sstatutory requirement to promote equalities.

61. Members and officers stressed theimportance of taking evidence from the ‘keyplayers’. On the majority of enquiries it was seenas vital that large organisations, both public andprivate, had the opportunity to present evidence.Committee meetings are quite often organisedaround the availability of senior officers fromorganisations regarded as vital to the process.Most respondents suggested that (certainly bythe end of the first term) it was well known ineach committee who the key players were.Mayoral advisers, if not the Mayor himself, werefrequently invited to scrutiny sessions, especiallythose concerning strategies and functionalbodies. On a few occasions mayoral advisershave been subject to the Assembly’s power ofsummons to attend.

62. Although the timetabling of the evidentiaryhearings—the substantive part of a scrutinyprocess—is strict and effective, evidenceindicates that delays have occurred on many

scrutinies between the first draft of the report andpublication. On some occasions this hasreduced the topicality of reports. Much of thisrelates to party political tensions.

63. Officer initiatives in scrutiny methodologyappear more common in the London Assemblythan elsewhere. This is not a way of saying thatofficers drive the process, but that membersappear willing to try new methods at officers’suggestion. One member suggested that theofficers were willing to bring members backshould committee discussions drift away fromthe subject of the meeting, and that this was notregarded as improper.

64. The requirement to have regard to the‘interests of Londoners’ appears to give officersgreater latitude for innovation than is the caseelsewhere. For instance, on a scrutiny carriedout into football stadiums in London, the scrutinyofficer set up an e-mail address and invitedcomments to it via fanzine chat-rooms. On thescrutiny into the cultural strategy, a shortage oftime led to a decision to concentrate on a fewaspects of the cultural strategy, such as aperceived lack of emphasis on sport. Thisinfluenced the evidence that was invited. On theenquiry into Chancery Lane, the officer drewtogether a considerable amount of relevantpublished research and monitored the progressof the parallel enquiries into the incident byLondon Underground and the Health and SafetyExecutive. He also attended the House ofCommons Transport Select Committee enquiryinto the issue, and exchanged information with itsclerks.

65. The Chancery Lane enquiry was unusual inthat its terms of reference were constrained bythe existence of the Health and SafetyExecutive’s enquiry and London Underground’sinternal investigation. The committee wereaware that they would be unable to obtaininformation from either of these enquiries beforethey were complete, so it decided to concentrateon the experience of the members of the publicinvolved in the derailment. London Undergroundsenior management, trade unions and six eye-witnesses were invited to oral evidence sessions

Methods of investigation

10 See Mark Sandford and Lucinda Maer, Scrutiny under Devolution: Committees in the Scottish Parliament,Northern Ireland Assembly and National Assembly for Wales, Constitution Unit, London, 2003.

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with the committee, and valuable newinformation was obtained about events as aresult. The committee uncovered severaldisparities between official London Undergroundaccounts of events, the views of trade unions,and the experience of the witnesses.

66. A few Assembly scrutinies have beenstructured in a different way to the standard form.The enquiry into Access to Primary Care isadvertised as a ‘joint scrutiny’ with the Mayor. Thecommittee consisted of four Assembly membersand four mayoral appointees. This appears anintuitive path to follow for external scrutiny, whereboth the Mayor and the Assembly have aninterest in lobbying for a particular outcome.However, this appears to have taken place only inan ad hoc manner so far.

Gathering information67. The manner in which written evidence isinvited depends upon whether an enquiry’semphasis is on public and/or stakeholderinvolvement or on obtaining reliable information.Most enquiries by the Assembly can be a mixtureof both. Interest groups and public agenciesrelevant to the subject of the enquiry are normallyroutinely invited to submit evidence: the scrutinyofficers’ team holds a database of some 3000organisations. On some occasions specificwritten questions or issues may be sent to thesewitnesses.

68. On some enquiries—the culture strategywas a particular example—this procedurecreates problems. Many of the agenciescontacted will have been consulted by the Mayorwhen drawing up the strategy, and will beconsulted again on the final document. Somesee limited appeal in responding yet again to theAssembly committee enquiry. This may be anintrinsic problem of a government with such wideconsultation requirements.

39. Time pressures mean that innovativemethods of gathering information are morefrequently used in London than in other scrutinybodies. Committees meet once every twoweeks, and may be forced to apply a large bodyof written evidence in a concentrated oralsession. This leads to procedures such as thefollowing:

“We got the TfL person in who wrote thestrategy, but prior to that we contacted all of

the other groups who were interested in [thesubject], to find out what their views were,and we used their views on the draftstrategy to question TfL—do you see anyproblems with this, do you foresee resourceallocation issues here. So the poor guy whoturned up, he got hit—he was expecting agentle session with members but in effectwhat he got was a concentrated set of publicmeetings with interest groups.”

70. The scrutiny into the draft Cultural Strategyhad to be carried out extremely quickly due to latepublication of the strategy. The CultureCommittee decided to concentrate on a smallnumber of substantive issues instead ofscrutinising the entirety of the strategy:

“Rather than take it apart and look at it as atotal strategy, [the idea] was really to pickcertain elements.. Partly they were pickedon their importance to London, so wepicked the South Bank Centre because it’s amajor cultural institution, and partly onmembers’ perceptions—for example, thatsport wasn’t being addressed as much as itshould be.”

71. Visits to particular sites are used relativelyinfrequently. Diary clashes for committeemembers mean that they can be very difficult toorganise. On the Access to Primary Care report,the committee visited a GP surgery in Bromley-by-Bow (where one of the co-opted committeemembers worked). The surgery was newly-builtand was seen as an example of what could beachieved in a deprived area. The visit wasorganised by one of the Mayor’s representativeson the committee, who was himself a GP at thesurgery, The surgery was located in a disusedchurch, alongside a crèche and a training facility.The visit was written up, complete with pictures,as an appendix to the final report.

72. The Transport committee, meanwhile, hascarried out visits to Paris and New York to take ageneral look at the metropolitan travel systems.The Health Committee has travelled toScandinavia. On other scrutinies, visits are lessappropriate, and on others time pressuresprevent them from happening.

Rapporteurs73. One rapporteur’s report has so far beencarried out in the Assembly. John Biggs, a Labour

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assembly member, carried out a scrutiny of theThames foreshore and path. This was doneunder the auspices of the Planning and SpatialDevelopment committee. The subject was ofparticular interest to the rapporteur, and thecommittee voted to permit him to take the lead ona short enquiry.

74. The rapporteur was responsible for invitingwritten evidence and organising a single oralevidence session, and for the writing up of thereport. At the oral evidence session, however, allof the committee members had an opportunity toquestion witnesses. The rapporteur took thechair (the normal incumbent was a ConservativeAssembly member) for the part of the session inwhich the witnesses were examined. The finalreport was approved by the committee. It hasnot, however, returned to the subject.

75. This rapporteur’s report does not appear tohave acted as a pilot for the more frequent use ofreporters. One other rapporteur’s report—onLondon Weighting—was carried out in 2002, withMeg Hillier, a Labour Assembly member, asrapporteur. This took place under the secondcommittee structure, meaning that therapporteur reported to the full Assembly.However, the Assembly has been consideringmaking more use of rapporteurs, and it ispossible that this may inform any changes to thecommittee structure following the June 2004election.

Special advisers76. Special advisers have been only rarelyused in the Assembly. In contrast to practice inthe House of Commons and the devolvedassemblies, special advisers are used only forspecific technical matters. The use of specialadvice tends to take the form of consultancycontracts rather than the attachment of aspecialist to the committee for the duration of anenquiry. This is linked to the fact that timerestrictions dictate that most enquiries arerelatively short: it is unusual for one to last formore than five sessions. The Assembly alsosuffered from the problem that “everyone whowas a possible candidate for being an advisorhad already been approached by the Mayor”.

77. The Health Committee used two specialadvisers on the joint scrutiny into Access toPrimary Care. The advisers only attended someof the scrutiny sessions, concentrating on

evaluating the questions that had been drawn upby the clerks and the committee. The committeeused a third adviser as an ‘expert proofreader’ atthe stage of producing the draft report: thisperson was hired to ensure that the committeehad not been misled by witnesses, and that itwas not making unworkable recommendations.The Transport Committee has used oneparticular consultant on a regular basis, but hasmoved from taking direct advice and reports fromthis person to using him as a facilitator (forinstance, using his contacts to expose thecommittee to the views of a range of experts).

78. In the first year of the Assembly’s existencesubstantial use was made of f irms ofconsultants, as only a very small scrutiny officerteam existed. Some disquiet had existed at thewide-ranging reports produced by consultants atthis time. It was felt that they did not take politicalrealit ies into account in the unfamiliarconstitutional structure of the GLA: “they weresupposed to reflect the views of a four-partycommittee and produce recommendations thatcan be implemented, and [which] aren’t justconfined to the technical aspects”. It appears thatthe pendulum has swung the other way, to apresumption against using outside help unless itis necessary. The consultancy budget hasshrunk each year since 2000–01.

79. Other officers have taken interestinginitiatives with regard to grassroots involvementwith the scrutiny process. Because of thisimperative, there is perhaps less emphasis in theLondon Assembly on bringing heavyweightknowledge to bear on the Mayor’s team, andmore on using the ‘moral resource’ of the viewsof Londoners as a tool of policy influence. Onerespondent specifically stated that she did notwant to become an expert in her committee’sfield, but to take a generalist’s point of view on theissues under discussion. The Assembly has noseparate research department. Besides this, themajority of Assembly scrutinies take place over aperiod of only two to three months—a very tighttimescale for any research to be commissionedand done.

80. The turnover of members on the currentcommittee system has been relatively low. Thishelps to maintain a collective memory for thecommittees, which is particularly useful as somecommittees continually return to the samesubjects. For instance, four scrutinies oncongestion charging have been carried out in the

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first term of the Assembly. Members are moreeasily able to connect current enquiries withprevious ones and bring their accumulatedknowledge to bear.

Recommendations• The strict t imetabling of scrutiny

processes is commendable. However,stricter processes are required for draftingand signing off scrutiny reports.

• Interesting officer initiatives have takenplace in methodology in the Assembly,which should be discussed in scrutinyofficer networks.

• Although there is no room here to discussthe constitutional oddities of MPA andLFEPA, it would seem valid for the PublicServices committee to attempt toscrutinise specifics of their work. Thiscould take place through a joint process,with MPA or LFEPA board members sittingalongside Assembly members who werenot board members. This would not beideal but would improve on the currentposition, where both organisations seemto be considered out of bounds.

• Visits to specific sites are a valuable way ofenhancing committee understanding ofissues—and also of promoting theAssembly’s profi le with ordinaryLondoners. They must be carefullytimetabled at the start of a scrutinyprocess.

• Commissioned research may beparticularly helpful in external scrutinies,where the Assembly is freer to advance asystematic policy approach. Scrutinieswithin the GLA family naturally rely moreupon the ‘primary evidence’ of the activitiesof the Mayor and the functional bodiesthemselves.

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Methods of gathering oral evidence81. All of the enquiries studied took some formof oral evidence. The majority was taken in theform of hearings: witnesses were invited toappear before the Committee and werequestioned. This is a part of the ‘classicalscrutiny’ model used by Westminstercommittees.

82. As with other tiers of government, takingevidence from the ‘key players’—public bodies,professional organisations, campaign groups—was perceived as a priority in the LondonAssembly. But many respondents alsoemphasised the need to take evidence fromordinary people. The word ‘Londoners’ was usedvery frequently in this context—respondentsappeared to take seriously the requirement tolook at ‘issues of importance to Londoners’.Those invited to give oral evidence were in mostcases a sub-set of those who had given writtenevidence.

83. Interviews did not indicate that theAssembly had ever experienced problems withpotential witnesses refusing to attend sessions.The Assembly can compel staff of the functionalbodies or the GLA to attend, and the power ofsummons has been used on a few occasions onMayoral advisers. On one occasion centralgovernment civil servants refused to attend,claiming (correctly) that they were accountableto central government. However, on otheroccasions civil servants have attended to outlineGovernment views on issues.

84. Most oral evidence sessions are themed,so that three to six witnesses will be seen by thecommittee on a similar topic. A balance must bedrawn between enabling the maximum amountof evidence to be taken on board and overloadingmembers:

“I have a general rule that meetingsshouldn’t last more than an hour and a half.If there are a lot of witnesses we can go totwo hours. The committee members areactually individually quite committed, butpartly because they know that the meetingwill last an hour and a half—if they turn upprepared and briefed we will get through thebusiness in that time.”

85. Alternative models of oral evidence can bedivided into two types.

• A range of methods drawn from publicconsultation and participation may beused: for instance, focus groups, informaldiscussions, or citizens’ jury-type events.

• The committee, or committee members,may travel to relevant organisations and 1)discuss issues informally or be shown thework of those organisations, or 2) holdformal or semi-formal hearings in theorganisation’s building: this mayencourage members of traditionallyexcluded groups to be more forthcoming ingiving evidence to the committee.

86. Visits are not used on all enquiries. Theyare regarded as an addition to the scrutinyprocess rather than a formative part of it—onerespondent stated:

“They’re a bit like the royal progress. If yougo to a hospital, or a GP clinic, to see what’sactually happening, they know you’recoming and they’re prepared for you toarrive…. But it does put it in perspective.”

Questions in oral evidence sessions87. Questions can be divided into two types:interrogative and informative. Interrogativequestions are asked when members are seekinginformation which the witnesses would notreadily give to them: sometimes, the non-availability of this information is the justificationfor the enquiry taking place.

88. Procedures for drafting questions aresimilar to those at other tiers of government.Suggested questions will be drafted for themembers by the scrutiny officers, on the basis ofthe evidence available. Gaps or contradictions inthe evidence are addressed by the questions.The areas of questioning, though not usually theprecise questions, are circulated in advance tothe witnesses, to give them an opportunity toprepare. This is done both with witnesses fromthe GLA family and from external bodies. Goodquestions were described by one respondent as:

“drawn out of the research, well-founded inthe research, and…successful in delivering

Oral evidence

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important, useful, interesting information.The fact that it does that means that it iscertain to encourage further debate.”

89. Normally a half-hour pre-meeting will beheld before a formal evidence session. The chairwill allocate the questions to individual membersat this point. Members are free to bring their ownquestions, drafted by party researchers. As mostof the committees have either six or ninemembers, it is rarely difficult for a member to beheard, and no respondents had complaints inthis regard.

90. As with other t iers of government,respondents were critical of the quality ofquestions asked in oral evidence sessions.Respondents overwhelmingly felt that shortquestions were the most effective means ofputting witnesses under pressure. Criticismscentred upon the tendency to make statementsin committee instead of asking questions:

“[When I read the transcripts, I thought]how much waffle, you can have a memberasking a question over a page of text. I’msorry, but that’s not a question. You mightwant to add a bit of context, but the bestexchanges when you read it cold are onesentence, one sentence, one sentence.”

“There is a tendency for members to askvery long questions, and long questions arenot effective if you are seeking to put aperson under pressure…. A longquestion…gives the respondent longer tothink of the answer—and they’ll waffle theirway out of trouble…. It runs across party,I’m sorry to say.”

“Most of the people sitting on thatcommittee are from a local governmentbackground and are not very tolerant of theidea of one person continuing to probe witha series of questions. [In] localgovernment…, it’s more a case of one longquestion where you make your point, it’smore of a speech than a question, just tagon ‘would you agree’ at the end.”

91. Interrogative questions, elicit inginformation from witnesses which would not bereadily revealed, were more common in scrutinysessions looking at internal matters—eitherMayoral responsibilities or the functional bodies.Informative questions—inviting witnesses to

expand on their statements and give thecommittee the benefit of their knowledge—werecommoner in external scrutinies, investigationswhich were primarily fact-f inding andunconcerned to apportion blame.

92. Respondents also suggested that it wasrelatively rare for Assembly scrutinies to putwitnesses on the spot, using interrogativequestions. With external bodies, the Assemblyneeds to build up a good relationship with them inorder to maintain their co-operation. It is readierto use interrogative questions when it is facingfunctional bodies, or the Mayor’s team. This wasalso far more common in Mayor’s QuestionTime, and was only really used in one of the rareevent enquiries carried out by the Assembly. Onerespondent suggested that the scrutiny process,as a result, was:

“much more friendly—and as aconsequences perhaps even more rigorous.I don’t think people should arrive intrepidation. They should see it as a positiveprocess for improving services in London—or a process by which major weaknessescan be exposed and addressed. It shouldn’tbe a threatening experience.”

93. Another respondent indicated that thequestioning process could be quite frustrating inthe initial years of the Assembly, but that thefunctional bodies had become moreaccustomed to the need to account for theiractions:

“I took the view that TfL was such a closedbook that I might as well put the boot intothem, because they weren’t going to tell meanything willingly anyway,. Since then,things have mellowed a bit and we havecome to trust each other. Clearly, if you bitethe hand that could feed you, it won’t, sothere does need to be a gentlemanlyrelationship if you are going to get people tocome back to you…. [If] you are dead set onbeing adversarial and going for headlines,that won’t get you very far under thesurface.”

94. The questions are presented to memberswith a short paragraph explaining the backgroundto the question and its base in the evidencealready available to the committee. This allowsmembers who have not had time to readbriefings or evidence to contribute during the

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committee session. The process of draftingthese questions takes account of the fact thateach of the party groups will equip their memberswith analyses and questions of their own. Eachparty has approximately one researcher perelected member, and in the larger party groupssome of the researchers will specialise and thegroup as a whole will use their briefings. Scrutinyofficers must bear these factors in mind:

“What I’ve found members don’t like is ifyou come up with a list of 36 questionswhich you then say, ask these. It looks likethey’re not in control…. They see only sixquestions…[and they think that] we can geton to our own questions…. You try tostructure the questions so that you know[that] the answers…. will suggest obviousfollow-ups.”

95. The Budget Committee hears from a setlist of respondents during the annual scrutiny ofthe budget. These will include the chair andsenior officers, or chief financial officers, of eachof the functional bodies. The Mayor attends toanswer questions both as chair of Transport forLondon and as Mayor (hence responsible for CityHall’s budget). The committee will also takeevidence from various groups, such as the ALGand business representatives, on their responseto the budget whilst they are responding to theMayor’s consultation on it.

96. The Assembly will also have early accessto the proposed budgets for the MPA and LFEPA,due to the presence of its members on theirboards.

Recommendations• The demands of limited time mean that

evidence sessions are effectivelymanaged: witnesses are grouped bytheme, and sessions rarely last for morethan three hours.

• Short questions are almost always moreeffective at eliciting information, evenwhere informative and not interrogativequestions are appropriate. Basicinformation can be obtained throughwritten submissions, whilst oral evidencesessions are best used to follow up morefocused points.

• Visits could be carried out by committeeson a more systematic basis. They are veryuseful, both for reconnecting the institution

with its electorate, and for enhancing theAssembly’s own legitimacy and visibility.

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97. The majority of enquiries which we studiedfollowed the format used at Westminster, ofpublishing a report together with a set ofrecommendations. However, the LondonAssembly’s reports were mostly considerablyshorter than the average select committeereport. Few exceed forty pages, with some beingonly some 6–8 pages long. They are produced incolour, are easy to read, and explain the purposeof the scrutiny process, giving considerabledetail in appendices of how the report wasproduced.

98. The report is drafted by the scrutiny officer,on the basis of the evidence presented to thecommittee. The Assembly has a standardtemplate for reports: the recommendations mustbe laid out in a summary at the end of the report,together with references to appendices andevidence received.

99. Many committees do not hold formaldeliberation sessions, where the report is readparagraph by paragraph and agreed. Thisprocess often takes place by e-mail, with thechair and scrutiny officer co-ordinating redrafting.Members will suggest the reworking of particularsections and sentences and this will be approvedby the chair. Committees which function like thiswill hold an extra meeting, or a bilateral betweenthe chair and another member, to resolvesignificant disagreements. Formal votes duringdeliberation are extremely rare.

100. A letter is written after three months toevery organisation affected by a scrutiny report toask for their reaction: if a recommendation isdirected specif ically at them, anycorrespondence can be more easily focused. Onone committee, each of the recommendations isproduced with a note stating which organisationsthey are intended for. This does not appear to bestandard practice across the committees, but isextremely useful for following recommendationsup at a later date. One scrutiny officer suggestedthat, where possible, recommendations weredirected at ‘GLA group’ bodies:

“The tendency is where there is no realconnection [i.e. external matters], basicallya lot of recommendations are on the Mayor,LDA or TfL as groups which you canmonitor the progress [of]…. On other issues

a lot of the time it’s…we want more money.Full stop. Not ‘recommendation—the Mayorshould plead the case because of this.’”

101. Recommendations to external bodies dooccasionally have an impact. Three of therecommendations to the General MedicalCouncil under the GP Recruitment report, whichrelated to the difficulties experienced by refugeedoctors in gaining work in the UK, wereaccepted. This may have happened becausethis was a national issue at the time, and theGMC may have been considering it for sometime, but it is also likely that a published reportfrom a democratic body helped to speed theprocess along. One respondent suggested thatcommittees needed to:

“make sure you know who you’rerecommending it to, what precisely you’rerecommending, is it manageable and whatthe cost potentially is. And by when. Youcan’t just say, the Mayor should give moneyto [four different areas] and if you add it allup it is nonsense. [If we recommend togovernment], well ‘government’ is a bigorganisation, so which bit? No-one will takeresponsibility unless it’s narrowed down.”

102. Respondents suggested that, althoughthere was evidence of impact by Assemblyreports, the subjects of the reports themselveswere only rarely followed up. With the exceptionof extremely hot topics such as congestioncharging, few committees have returned to asubject a year after producing a report (forexample) and investigated whether theirrecommendations have been put into practiceand whether changes have occurred as a result.Recommendations are monitored by scrutinyofficers: there are few pressures from membersto re-examine subjects which have beenreported upon:

“Members don’t like going over old ground,but it’s most appreciated by the peoplewho’ve been involved in scrutinies—they’vegiven up their time and effort to come, weproduce a report, and they never hear fromus again. Unless maybe three years laterwhen we want to do it again, and they say‘why? It didn’t benefit us last time.’”

Report drafting, publication and follow-up

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103. Occasionally, draft reports are shared withwitnesses or outside bodies by the Assembly, inorder to weed out any misunderstandings. Thisis also a common practice within localgovernment.

Party politics104. Party politics do not play a very strong rolein the evidence sessions or normal committeemeetings within the Assembly’s scrutinyprocess. Party political disagreements arefocused on the agreement of recommendations.There are two influential points here. Firstly, it israre for Assembly committees to hold formaldeliberation sessions, reading draft reportsparagraph by paragraph. Reports tend to befinalised by e-mail contact between clerk, chairand members. This can lead to delays of severalweeks whilst members discussrecommendations.

105. Secondly, the Assembly has to make draftreports publicly available when they arediscussed at committee meetings. This maymean that a draft report is seized upon by the‘outside world’ before it has been approved, andat a point when it may still be subject toconsiderable amendment. This is a conundrumto which the devolved assemblies are notsubject.

106. Party issues surface must commonly onissues over which the Mayor has executivepower. Congestion charging, for instance, isopposed by the Conservatives, and this partyposition inevitably colours scrutinies which touchon it. But the majority of the questions asked, andsubjects debated, are devoid of party politics.Party politics surfaces most commonly onissues over which the Mayor has executivepower. Similarly, the budget process, which ispivotal to the work of the Assembly, is tinged withparty politics:

“We will have our stock of questions whichthe other side won’t know about, and whatyou tend to do is try to work those in whenwe come to the appropriate stage…[but]there’s been a couple of occasions when,because of the media agenda, it’s mucheasier to sabotage the order so that you getin first, otherwise you don’t get theheadlines.”

Media coverage107. Strong attempts are made to obtain goodpress coverage for committee reports. Becauseof the formal weakness of the Assembly’sposition, media and public pressure are ofimmense importance in ensuring reaction toreports’ recommendations—whether from theMayor or from external bodies:

“The media side of things is actually theAssembly’s greatest strength. In terms ofpower to do things, if we send the Mayor areport saying we don’t agree with thiscollectively…he doesn’t have to do it unlessthere’s a huge outcry outside this buildingas well.”

108. The press team prioritise reports, oraspects of reports, which are likely to be ofinterest to newspapers because of their subject.Hence, the report into the Chancery Lanederailment obtained vast press coverage (beinga topic of national interest). A specific issuesreport on the Mayor’s draft Cultural Strategy—theatre ticket promotions—was emphasised.The media team is involved at the point at whichscrutinies are commissioned, and the mediarelations team may informally suggest topics toofficers and members.

109. The approach to the media, and themedia’s interest, can be explained by threefactors—“subject, focus and freshness”. Thesubject of a scrutiny can often be identified as apossible “media hit” in advance. This may bestrengthened or weakened according to thespecific focus of the report that comes out of thescrutiny process. Linked to this, ‘freshness’essentially relates to topicality. The intrinsicinterest of the press in a subject varies overtime—for instance, congestion charging is not asnewsworthy now that the charging system is inplace. Care is taken not to launch severalscrutiny reports at once, and the Assembly mayagree with the media team to hold back a reportfor a few weeks in order not to over-burdeneditors or to coincide with a relevant story.

110. National, regional and local newspapers,and regional radio and television, are targeted bythe press team. Subjects of more marginalinterest are targeted towards specialistmagazines and journals:

31

“Possibly you can get more in the newsbecause the Mayor’s involved. If a report iscritical of the Mayor, that will get youcoverage. But a scrutiny of the draftAmbient Noise strategy [for instance] is notreally going to go further than a couple ofpublic health magazines.”

111. Committee chairs have been able to buildup expertise on their committee subjects throughthe press strategy. The chair has almostexclusive command of the media coverageavailable for a report, though as one membersaid “the press will go to other members of thecommittee whether I want them to or not”. Themedia line is agreed between the press team, thescrutiny team and the members: the aim is totake a line reflecting “what really matters toLondoners most”.

112. National coverage of the Assembly’sscrutinies has been strong. The report intoChancery Lane achieved coverage on all of thenational broadsheet newspapers—in partreflecting the continuing national salience ofLondon Underground. One respondent said:

“The real value of the Assembly is its abilityto expose. Access to media andLondoners…has a tendency to concentratethe mind of the professions.”

113. A Scrutiny Bulletin is also produced, forpublic consumption, and made available on thewebsite. So far three bulletins have beenproduced over two years. Details of scrutiniesundertaken are broken down by committee, andthe bulletins list the priorities of the committeesand the impact they have had on the subjectsscrutinised.

Impact of reports114. Committees cannot require any actionfrom the Mayor or from external bodies. In the lastinstance, committee recommendations dependon the relevant executive agency for action.Committees’ power is moral and political ratherthan legally enforceable. Most important to thispower is the cross-party support of thecommittee. The Assembly has been largely able

to maintain consensus: so far one minority reporthas been produced.11

115. Members’ other commitments can causedelays in the production and publication ofreports, though this has not been severelydetrimental so far. Unusually, in the Assemblyformal agreement of the report takes place after ithas been launched. This avoids a delay ofseveral days between formal agreement andlaunch, during which time the Mayor would havean opportunity to pre-empt or rebut theconclusion of a report.

116. We referred earlier to increasing politicaldisagreements over reports’ recommendations.A large build-up of unpublished reports occurredin the run-up to the June 2004 elections. In theevent almost all of these were published duringApril or early May.

117. The quarterly reports by the scrutinyofficers’ team to BMAC record any measurableimpacts from the scrutiny process. These vary intheir significance. The impact of a report maysimply consist of a commitment to follow up theissues in the following year, or record that thereport was launched to representatives of somesignificant organisations. On other occasions,changes in policy by other organisations havebeen noted, as direct or indirect results of thescrutiny report. This is a difficult process, as onerespondent suggested:

“I’m pretty sure that there are some pieces ofscrutiny which we have done which havepositively influenced policy making withinTfL, for example, but I think it would be thelast thing on earth for them actually to standup and admit that. You can be a bit of anunsung hero.”

118. Impact of reports, as at other tiers ofgovernment, depends on the topicality of thesubject and the relevant executive’s willingnessto take action. The report on GP Recruitment hada considerable impact due to the existence of apressing policy problem (GP shortages) andvarious potential solutions (recruitment ofdoctors from other countries, re-registeringdoctors with non-UK qualifications) which metbureaucratic obstructions. Similarly, the report

11 One scrutiny report has had to be abandoned due to insurmountable disagreements between the politicalparties.

32

on the Chancery Lane derailment dealt withsome very specific issues around the aftermathof the accident; training for LU staff, aftercare ofpassengers involved, ticket refunds. Eventsfollowing a subsequent derailment at CamdenTown indicated that the Committee’srecommendations had been taken on board.

Recommendations• Reports should make clear to which

organisations scrutiny recommendationsare directed. This facilitates the Assemblyfollowing up the recommendations after aperiod of three or six months.

• Committees should attempt to usedeliberation sessions, where reports areread through paragraph by paragraph, as amatter of course. This is particularlyimportant on issues where party politicaldifferences exist. This should go someway to avoiding long disagreementsbetween parties on the content of reports,which may have to wait several weeks tobe resolved outside the committee room.Delaying publication of a report may lessenits impact.

• Recommendations should be focused andrealistic, so that they can be monitored bythe Assembly. There is no incentive for theMayor or outside organisations to try to putinto practice aspirationalrecommendations, or ones which requirehuge spending or reversal of centralgovernment policy.

• It may be appropriate in some instances todiscuss recommendations on externalscrutinies with the Mayor. Where bothMayor and Assembly are trying to influenceexternal bodies, a co-ordinated approachcould be beneficial.

• The press impact of Assembly reports isextremely impressive compared with mostother tiers of government, managing tocatch the imagination of national news on anumber of occasions.

33

The following l ists reproduce therecommendations from the main sections of thebriefing. They are re-arranged here according towhich scrutiny ‘actors’ they are directed at.

Committees collectively or chairs• Visits could be carried out by committees

on a more systematic basis. They are veryuseful, both for reconnecting the institutionwith its electorate, and for enhancing theAssembly’s own legitimacy and visibility.

• It may be appropriate in some instances todiscuss recommendations on externalscrutinies with the Mayor. Where bothMayor and Assembly are trying to influenceexternal bodies, a co-ordinated approachcan only be beneficial.

• Recommendations should be focused andrealistic, so that they can be monitored bythe Assembly. There is no incentive for theMayor or outside organisations to try to putinto practice aspirationalrecommendations, or ones which requirehuge spending or reversal of centralgovernment policy.

• Committees should attempt to usedeliberation sessions, where reports areread through paragraph by paragraph, as amatter of course. This is particularlyimportant on issues where party politicaldifferences exist. This should go someway to avoiding long disagreementsbetween parties on the content of reports,which may have to wait several weeks tobe resolved outside the committee room.Delaying publication of a report may lessenits impact.

• Although there is no room here to discussthe constitutional oddities of MPA andLFEPA, it would seem valid for the PublicServices committee to attempt toscrutinise specifics of their work. Thiscould take place through a joint process,with MPA or LFEPA board members sittingalongside Assembly members who werenot board members. This would not beideal but would improve on the currentposition, where both organisations seemto be considered out of bounds.

• Committees should, in the second term,bear the aspirations of Mayoral strategiesin mind when scoping scrutinies. In

Regional Chambers, scrutiny processesoften focus on discrete parts of regionaleconomic strategies: the Assembly couldenhance the process of delivering thestrategies by subjecting them to similarrigour in London.

• A stronger relationship between dataavailable to the MPA and LFEPA boardmembers and Assembly committees—particularly the Public ServicesCommittee—would be desirable.However, achieving this in the currentstatutory situation may be problematic.

• Committees concerned with externalmatters could establish regular monitoringsessions with non-departmental publicbodies—for example, the CultureCommittee could review the London regionof the Arts Council and Sport England, andthe Environment Committee couldexamine the Environment Agency. Theseagencies cannot be compelled to attendsessions examining their annual reports,but they already co-operate with subject-based scrutinies.

Scrutiny officers• The demands of limited time mean that

evidence sessions are effectivelymanaged: witnesses are grouped bytheme, and sessions rarely last for morethan three hours.

• The press impact of Assembly reports isextremely impressive compared with mostother tiers of government, managing tocatch the imagination of national news on anumber of occasions.

• Reports should make clear to whichorganisations scrutiny recommendationsare directed. This facilitates the Assemblyfollowing up the recommendations after aperiod of three or six months.

• Commissioned research may beparticularly helpful in external scrutinies,where the Assembly is freer to advance asystematic policy approach. Scrutinieswithin the GLA family naturally rely moreupon the ‘primary evidence’ of the activitiesof the Mayor and the functional bodiesthemselves.

• Interesting officer initiatives have takenplace in methodology in the Assembly,

Recommendations

34

which should be discussed in scrutinyofficer networks.

• Annual scrutiny plans could be moreclosely co-ordinated with issues of interestto the Association of London Government.The development of the London ScrutinyOfficers’ network and the associatednetwork of members facilitates this. It hasalready begun with scrutiny of issues suchas the Ambulance Service.

Members• Short questions are almost always more

effective at eliciting information, evenwhere informative and not interrogativequestions are inappropriate. Basicinformation can be obtained throughwritten submissions, whilst oral evidencesessions are best used to follow up morefocused points.

• Visits to specific sites are a valuable way ofenhancing committee understanding ofissues—and also of promoting theAssembly’s profi le with ordinaryLondoners. They must be carefullytimetabled at the start of a scrutinyprocess.

• Assembly Standing Orders should requirethat polit ical proportionality on theAssembly is taken into account whenallocating committee chairships. TheAssembly is not an old-style local authority,where chairing committees representedpower. In particular, minority parties (suchas the Green Party) should be entitled tochairships of subject committees shouldthey wish to take them up and should thepolitical arithmetic justify it.

• A more systematic approach to externalscrutiny could be considered, where theMayor and the Assembly might worktogether on a scrutiny and later lobby jointlyfor action outside the GLA based on thescrutiny’s conclusions. Access to PrimaryCare demonstrated the potential of thisapproach.

35

Appendix 1: London Assembly scrutinyclassificationThis table lists all of the scrutiny reports carried out by the London Assembly under the third system ofscrutiny (i.e. since the second reorganisation of March 2002). The reports are listed by committee.The purpose of this table is to give an indication of the range and frequency of different types ofscrutiny carried out by the Assembly.

The categories used in this table are (with number of reports in each category):

Mayoral Strategy: a scrutiny of a mayoral strategy (whether statutory or non-statutory). We have alsoincluded the 2012 Olympic Bid in this category because, although it is not formally a ‘strategy’, it is oneof the most significant policy initiatives undertaken by the Mayor. (12)

External Strategy: a strategic policy review of external issues (16)

Policy Proposal: a focused examination of a particular policy. The majority of these relate to externalmatters. (11)

Event Enquiry: a backward look at policy which has already been executed. (7)

Budget: the work of the Budget Committee (5)

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3002yraunaJ tegduB tegduB

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roftropsnarT:tiforPetavirP,tseretnIcilbuPehtrofatipaChtiwtcartnoCs'nodnoL

emehcSgnigrahCnoitsegnoC

3002rebotcO tegduB yriuqnetnevE

tegduBnoitatlusnoCs'royaMehtrofseussI50/4002

3002rebmevoN tegduB tegduB

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rebmeceD2002

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semaGcipmylO2102ehtrofdiBs'nodnoL 3002yraunaJ erutluC ygetartslaroyaM

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s'nodnoLfoyniturcS-emoHmorfyawAsmuidatSllabtooF

3002enuJ erutluC lanretxEygetarts

troperylbmessAnodnoLA?tcefrePerutciPsamenics'latipacehtotni

3002rebotcO erutluC lanretxEygetarts

36

emaN etaD eettimmoC epyT

seitinutroppognivorpmI:ecnahCgnitropSAsrenodnoLgnuoyrof

3002rebmevoN erutluC lanretxEygetarts

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secapScilbuPnignikomS 2002lirpA htlaeH lanretxEygetarts

37

emaN etaD eettimmoC epyT

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38

emaN etaD eettimmoC epyT

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tsae-htuosehtnitropsnartrianonoitatlusnoc

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noitatlusnoc

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?noisnapxEdrawtseW-gnigrahCnoitsegnoC rebmeceD3002

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pmuhehttogs'nodnoL 4002lirpA tropsnarT lasoporpyciloP

39

Appendix 2: London Assembly members, 2000–04This table lists members of the Assembly, and their positions within the GLA family, as at May 2004.

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Appendix 3: Other outputs from EffectiveScrutinyMark Sandford and Lucinda Maer, Old Habits Die Hard? Overview and scrutiny in local government ,February 2004, 57pp, £10.00.

Lucinda Maer and Mark Sandford, The Development of Scrutiny in the UK; an overview of proceduresand practice, January 2004, 58pp, Available on line.

Mark Sandford and Lucinda Maer, Scrutiny under devolution: committees in Scotland, Wales andNorthern Ireland, November 2003, 51pp, £8.00.

Mark Sandford and Lucinda Maer, Annotated Bibliography of Effective Scrutiny, Available on line (pdf)

Mark Sandford and Lucinda Maer, Effective Scrutiny in the Devolved Institutions, ESRC DevolutionProgramme Briefing No. 6, February 2004, 6pp.

Lucinda Maer and Mark Sandford, Select Committees under Scrutiny, June 2004, 43pp, £10.00.

ISBN: 1 903903 33 9