The Functionality of the Greater London Authority - Essay Example

?A report on the functionality of the greater London ity Introduction The greater London has an obligation of hosting the oncoming London Olympics. This is great expedition that needs utter preparedness to ensure there is greeter success in the games. Since it is a worldwide activity, there is need to have the best measures to ensure the venue is in the best point of hosting the games. Therefore, this report seeks to reflect on the functionality of the key leaders and key controlling points in the area in coming up with the best preparation. To begin with, the report will analyze on the powers and responsibilities of the Great London authority and the mayor (Mayor of London, 2011). Secondly, the report will have a reflection on the policies that are related to the environment, as introduced by the mayor in the last five years. This will be a critical analysis of the policies and a critical evaluation of the evidence as provided by literature reviews. Thirdly, the report will include focus on the existing gap between policy, public policy initiatives and general practice. This will be in line with the London developments in line with the established policies during the time of governance by the incumbent mayor. Lastly, the report will direct its focus on the concerns about the effectiveness of the greater London authority. This will also reflect on the effectiveness of the mayor in making it a key success in executing all the stated policies. Similarly, the report will have information about the environmental developments that have been effected by the great London authority. The success of the policies will be used to evaluate the performance of the great London authority and the mayor. Therefore, positive accrual will refer that the great London authority has been successful, alongside the services of the mayor, which is a positive trait. Powers and responsibility of the mayor The mayor and the great London authority have various obligations in their mandate, which need to be executed while in office. The GLA is a considerable administrative tool that was incepted in London to take care of the developments. It has vast responsibilities in ensuring there is rapid development in the area. The body is vested with powers and responsibilities that used to execute the decisions. Therefore, the development of London is the initial responsibility of The GLA (Edwards and Miller, 2008). London is a city that needs exponential development with a rapid improvement over the years. Apparently, the GLA is considered the apt option that would deal with the development of the city. This is a vast responsibility that needs ample preparedness and stratification of strategies on the development. In the recent times, the GLA has been coming up with developmental programs that are functioning to the advantage of the city. Therefore, it has been responsible for most of in its functions in the city. This shows that it has been effective in implementing it responsibilities. In addition to this, the environment has record rapid improvement as the city generates better services to the people. In essence, the implementation of the strategies by GLA has been successful in the city with more progress recorded in the past five years. The first responsibility of the Great London Authority is social development. Social development is an initiative that is geared towards providing a social induction that makes all the people have a better social life. The people have to be contented with their residence in the area. This is only done through the provision of highly rated social services. Therefore, it is in the best interests of the GLA to ensure the people have the best social services. The social services include recreational grounds, effective transport and social living. With ample provisions of these services, the GLA will have successfully executed its responsibilities. In actual sense, the GLA will have accrued an effective performance in accordance to its obligations. The second obligation of the Great London Authority is to have immense improvement in the environment. This is a strong responsibility that should be treated with the utter preparedness, especially with the strategies that are used in its execution. Therefore, the GLA is responsible for waste management in the area. This includes cleaning all the waste materials and disposing the waste in appropriate area. In addition to this, the GLA is responsible for maintaining sewer channels in the area. This is a responsibility that should be prioritized as it could develop immense consequences in the society. Secondly, GLA has the responsibility of making environmental awareness in the area. It has a responsibility of passing information to the population in regard to the environmental conservation strategies. This will help in ensuring the environment is in adorable standards, fit for human life. Thirdly, GLA has a mandate of developing environmental strategies that will improve the environment. For instance, it is mandated to have awareness on the best sources of energy. Using the prioritized sources of energy is a positive induction that relents to better environmental conditions. The third and final responsibility of the GLA is aligned to wealth creation and economic development. The economic development should be in a rapid improvement while many people amass greater wealth. In essence, the GLA is responsible for the development of the area and improving the economy. Therefore, the GLA has to strategically improve on the financial performance of the area with respect to the people’s economic stability. This shows that the body is responsible for the economic development and stability of the economy. In making the economic development a success, the body has incepted various strategies that are geared towards a positive accrual. First, the body has incepted a wide range of economic activities that offer employment to many people. The workers earn enough wages that are used in the economy. With such spending, the economy has a guaranteed improvement. Secondly, the body has incepted metropolitan policing. This is an initiative that is geared towards controlling the migration and residence of the people. Since the area is rapidly growing in terms of the population, there has to be sufficient planning. This will reduce demographic problems that may crop up in the near future. In addition to this, the body is responsible for transport planning in the area. Traffic congestion has been a major problem in the area as it wastes an arguable huge man power. Therefore, the body has developed better channels that are used to reduce the congestion of traffic in some areas. This includes initiating alternative transport facilities. For instance, the body has relied on using train as an alternative transport facility. This has been a positive move as many people have reverted to using the train as a major means of transport. The mayor has a number of responsibilities in his docket. Since he is in an elected position, there are stated responsibilities that he ahs to execute. The current mayor, Boris Johnson is not an exception of the responsibilities (Borris, 2010). Therefore, he is under obligation of ensuring they are executed in the stated manner. First, the mayor has executive powers of controlling the Great London Authority. He is in full control of the authority and assists in making decisions in according tom the interests of the body. Therefore, he is considered as a prioritized decision maker in the body. Secondly, the mayor has a responsibility of defining the policies and work programs to a majority of the employees in the body. This indicates that the mayor has an obligation of setting the policies that should be used within the GLA (General Books Llc, 2010). Therefore, all the endorsements regarding the employees are designed by the mayor. This is in line with the interests of the body in becoming a successful developer. In essence, the mayor is obliged to ensure all the policies are fully executed by the employees he controls. The mayor has a responsibility of restructuring the policies embedded on the employees depending on the performance of the employees and the policies. The mayor has a responsibility in preparation off the budgets for the GLA body. This includes all the consolidated and component budgets that may affect the functionality of the body. All bodies in the government need to have sufficient and effective budgets, for an effective accrual. Therefore, it is in the mandate and best interests of the mayor to ensure the budgetary estimates are sufficient. However, the mayor should give ample information on the exact propositions as it is unacceptable to have inflated and deflated budgets. The second responsibility includes laying visions that are in the best interests of the body. The mayor is concerned with the futuristic developments of the body and has to strategize on the visionary strategies. Planning ahead is the vital factor of consideration as it is likely to affect the future of the body (Trench, 2007. Thirdly, the mayor has a responsibility of achieving the ambitions of the body. The specific ambitions of the body are time bound, and therefore they should be executed in the planned time. Apparently, most of the ambitions in the mayoral docket are geared towards developing the economy for sustainability, having improved environments, a social set up that is conducive to economic development and to crown it all, making London the biggest city in the world (Borris, 2010). In addition to this, the mayor has a number of responsibilities that are geared towards making a sustainable growth and improvement in the environment. This includes focusing on climate change issues, incepting biodiversity, initiating safe water disposal, and making the air of good quality. Policies related to the environment Many policies have been initiated by the mayor in the last five years that have generated success in the city. The first policy that has been acted upon is the transport for London (Greater London Authority, et al, 2003). The mayor has developed sufficient policies that have been used to initiate effective transport in the city. According to the GLA report, it is declared that the transport in the area has been improved as lesser man hours are wasted on the rods and transport terminals. In the recent developments, many people have reverted to using the train as a major transport carriage. In actual sense, the train has recorded an improvement in the transport sector. For instance, traffic has reduced on the road transport as most people use the train. In addition to this, the pollution in the environment has reduced due to the emissions that are reduced. A single train has lesser emissions in comparison to many people using their private cars. The second policy of the GLA is in line with policing and crime. The policing policy is an induction that has been developed to ensure there is reduced crime rate in the city. Though this is a policy that has been in the city for an arguably long time, it has been rapidly improving. The incumbent mayor, Boris has initiated various improvement and implementations to the policy (Mayor of London, 2011). This is a step that is used to reduce the effects of crime and reduce crime rates in the city. With such policies, the city has been able to have a rapid development. The mayor has policies on the climate of the area, and ensures the policies are utilized to its best. The climate policy has been incepted by the London Climate Change agency which is obligated to inform the developments of the climate. This is a prioritized agency as the climate affects most people in the city. Therefore, the development of the climate policy is a strategic improvement that ha recorded plausible results in the city (Mayor of London, 2011). With such agencies, the city has experienced improvement in preparedness of the climatic changes. The agency comes with forecasted conditions which are used to make various plans on the future. Subsequently, the mayor has policies that are used to ensure the environment is in acceptable standards. This includes using environmental friendly chemicals, planning on the environmental changes and using successful environmental strategies. This includes conserving water, flora and fauna. With such activities in the city, there is a high degree of having a better environment. This is an initiative that is a priority in the city. Therefore, the GLA body is determined to ensure this priority is given unified efforts in full execution. In addition to this, the mayor has policies that are geared towards eradicating issues related to waste disposal. The GLA is geared towards providing better avenues in waste disposal. This is an initiative that is geared towards providing a safer environment devoid of careless waste disposal. In actual sense, the GLA body oversees the waste disposal in the city. This ensures a clean and habitable environment in the city. Analysis of the gap between the public and policy initiatives Though there are many policies that are geared towards the success of the city, there are some instances that reflect a conflict of interest between the policy initiatives and the public. The conflict of interests between the public and the policy initiatives is a retrogressive activity that reduces the development of the city. Since most of the public interests are affected, the policies have to reconsider the implementation (Miller, Vandome and John, 2010). This has heightened the gap between the concerned parties as most of the affected people seek legal entities to stop execution of some of the policies. In actual sense, some of the public has stalled some of the projects and policies that are implemented in the city due to vested interests in some of the resources. This is a setback as most of the projects are not achieved in the stated time margin. In addition t this some of the expenses are inflated due to the changing economic times. However, there have been plausible changes in London, courtesy of the GLA, which is controlled by the mayor. First, there has been an improvement in the transport sector. The initiation of different and alternative transport facilities has developed an improvement in the transport sector. People have benefited from the transport initiates as they save man hours lost in traffic congestion. Secondly, the climate and environment has been improved in the area as most of the experts have generated successive strategies (Mayor of London, 2011). The area and city residents have had a positive induction in regard to the environment as it is conducive to development. Lastly, the gap between the public and the policies implements by GLA has been narrowed following the inception of better waste disposal methods. The waste disposal methods have improved the city environment. According to the report released by GLA, the city has improved and is denoted among the cleanest cities. Effectiveness of the GLA In conclusions, the Great London authority has denoted that the Olympic Games are a spectacular event that needs ample preparedness. In its capacity, it has been on the frontline of ensuring the London fraternity develops to its best. This is by forming several agencies that have their own priorities in regard to the environment. First, the Great London Authority has developed strategies that will be used in waste management. It is the obligation and responsibility of the great London authority to ensure all waste is managed in the best way in the area. Therefore, the waste management should structure ways in which there will be reduced waste disposal to the environment. In essence, the GLA is geared towards eradicating haphazard waste disposal in the environment. The second responsibility of the GLA is reduction of carbon emissions to the environment. Carbon emissions pose a threat to human life and should be reduced (Mayor of London, 2011). Being an effective body, the GLA has a mandate of ensuring there are reduced carbon emissions in the environment. This includes developing and initiating alternative energy sources. These energy sources have lesser carbon burning, which results to reduced emissions to the environment. It has therefore developed the London Energy partnership, an agency that assists in the energy development. This has been an agency that has recorded successful results in the London city, making it a more developed area. The third responsibility of the GLA is promoting climate awareness in the area. This has been particularly been an initiative that has been mandated to the London Climate Change agency. The agency has successfully executed it responsibility in regard to climate and environmental awareness (Borris, 2010). Climate awareness is a positive orientation to the people as they developed better approach to climate issues. In actual sense, sensitizing the population on climate awareness is positivity in ensuring the people show preparedness in accordance to the climate. Climatic changes have had a negative impact to most people without ample preparedness. This will result into plausible occasions that denote an improvement in the livelihood of the people. Lastly, the GLA is mandated to use biodiversity during execution of its duties (Mayor of London, 2011). Bio diversity denotes the use of alternative sources of energy in the production of economic activities. This includes all the initiatives that have been used by the London Energy Partnership that has initiated various developments in the city. This includes development f alternative transport, alternative heating and others. This will have a positive approach to conserving the energy and the environment as a whole. References Borris, J. 2010. The Greater London Authority Strategic Plan 2010-2012. Edwards, P. and Miller, C., 2008. Changing the atmosphere: expert knowledge and environmental governance. Cambridge: MIT Press General Books Llc .2010. Greater London Authority Functional Bodies: Transport for London, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, London Development Agency. London: General Books LLC, Greater London Authority, Transport for London (Organization), London Development Agency, London (England). Mayor .2003. The GLA's London Workforce Employment Series. London: Greater London Authority, Mayor of London, 2011. Role of the Mayor. Retrieved from: http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/mayor/role Miller, F. P., Vandome, A. F. and John M. 2010. Greater London Authority. London: VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K. Trench A. 2007. Devolution and Power in the United Kingdom. Manchester: Manchester University Press, Read More