MD1500 Mayoral Scheme of Delegation

Scheme of Delegation

1.1 The Mayor’s approval is sought for the revised Mayoral Scheme of Delegation for 2015-16. The Scheme is revised annually.

1.2 The principal changes made are listed below. The revised Scheme comes into force on 1 June 2015.

Giving of Mayoral consents

Text has been included at paragraph 1.5 on page 4 to clarify that the giving of Mayoral consent under any statutory requirement (e.g. provision of financial assistance by MDCs) or such as may be required by a Mayoral direction (e.g. under the LLDC Governance Direction) explicitly falls under the Mayoral Scheme of Delegation and can be provided by staff listed in Annex 2 under the General Delegation.

GLRO functions

It has been explicitly recognised that the GLRO’s functions should be exercised on an independent and impartial basis and free from political interference (see paragraphs 2.2, 2.4 and 5.22 on pages 5, 6 and 20 respectively).

Approval of Affordable Housing Programme budget

The text in paragraph 5.9 on page 13 explains how the Affordable Housing Programme is approved and is treated as Routine Expenditure. It has been amended to reflect current practice, where a Programme-level MD is signed by the Mayor and updates on additional allocations are published quarterly.

Routine Land and Property Transactions

“Routine Land and Property Transactions” are to be regarded as Routine Expenditure, so that once the GLA Budget is approved by the Mayor no further decision form (MD, DD etc) is required and the normal record keeping requirement applies (see paragraph 5.12 on page 15).

Mayoral appointments

The appointment to a position created under section 30 that is remunerated is to be approved by MD, rather than by letter, to reflect the commitment given to the GLA’s external auditors following questions from the Assembly on the nature of such appointments (see table 4 on page 23).

There are no specific equality issues arising.

The Scheme sets out certain financial thresholds for decision-making purposes.

4.1 The GLA Act 1999 contains two provisions enabling the Mayor to authorise members of GLA staff to undertake functions exercisable by him (“Mayoral powers”) on a general basis, whether given in the name of the Mayor or to the GLA, which by operation of s 35, GLA Act 1999, are exercisable by him on the GLA’s behalf. Section 380(1) allows him to delegate his functions (with certain exceptions) concerning culture, media and sport under Part X of the GLA Act 1999 to members of staff of the GLA subject to conditions.

4.2 Section 38(1) permits the Mayor to delegate to GLA staff his remaining functions (with certain exceptions) under that Act and also under any other applicable legislation, again subject to conditions. The proposed revised Scheme complies with both provisions. The matters listed in Part 1 of Annex 1 of the proposed Scheme (Mayoral Reserved Matters) reflect the functions that must by law be exercised by the Mayor personally; these cannot be delegated under any circumstance.

4.3 The proposed revised Scheme continues to impose a number of conditions on the authorisations he grants. These conditions are designed to continue to provide clarity, scrutiny and co-ordination as to the operation of the Scheme including the General Delegation to specified Senior Members of Staff. The General Delegation is intended to be all encompassing, allowing the post holder to exercise the Mayoral power in question and to do anything that facilitates, is conducive or incidental to doing so. The conditions also reflect the longstanding public law principle that decisions that are essentially procedural or administrative in nature can be delegated to others.