Clause 48
Greater London Authority Bill
2:15 pm
Yvette Cooper (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Department for Communities and Local Government; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
The Government recognise the intentions behind the amendment, but we believe that the changes are unnecessary. The amendment would place additional duties on the GLA and any other constituent functional body in delegating back-office functions to each other and would require those constituent bodies to have regard to the others’ needs and requirements. Proposed subsection (9) would require the Mayor to ensure that the GLA secures adequate resources from a functional body before entering into an arrangement with it.
Subsection (10) defines the Mayor and assembly, rather than the GLA as a whole, as constituent bodies. We do not think that its overall impact is necessary to the Bill. For a start, any arrangement between the constituent bodies concerning back-office functions would be made only with the agreement of those bodies, so they will be able to take into account each others’ needs and ensure that their own requirements are properly safeguarded.
Equally, we find it hard to envisage that the Mayor would agree to take on a functional body’s back-office functions without securing adequate resources to do so from the body concerned. In any event, it is the Mayor and assembly who set those bodies’ functional budgets, and they will be able to take into account any transfer of back-office functions in doing so.