The Greater London Authority: problems of strategy integration

Karen West, Kath Scanlon, Yvonne Rydin, Andy Thornley

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The Act that established the Greater London Authority (GLA) incorporated many of New Labour's aspirations for modern governance. Among those aspirations was the notion of policy integration, or 'joining up'. The Mayor of Greater London was required to develop a number of strategies, broadly in the planning and environmental policy domains, and to ensure that those strategies meshed into a coherent overall strategy for promoting London's economic, social and environmental well-being. How would this work in practice, given the need for coordination between the GLA and a number of related functional bodies, and given the political imperative for the GLA to make an impact quickly? Through our analysis of the strategy development and integration efforts of the GLA in its first nine months, we have gleaned new insights into the highly complex and difficult process of policy integration. We argue that the high aspirations of the Act for policy integration have not been met, policy integration instead being narrowly interpreted as the coordination of strategies to the Mayor's political agenda. Finally,we reflect on the likelihood of the GLA, as currently constituted, evolving to meet the functional requirement of policy integration.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)479-496
Number of pages18
JournalPolicy and Politics
Volume31
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2003

Keywords

  • greater london authority
  • strategy
  • coordination

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Greater London Authority: problems of strategy integration'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this