value for money

The Financial Times Calls The City Of London Council Undemocratic: This Local Authority Will Remain That Way Until Westminster Passes Legislation To Abolish Its Business Vote

The City operates an idiosyncratic system of “corporate democracy”. At best it is flawed, at worst a recipe for abuse. A connected problem is the scant choice of candidates. For every councillor position, there are just 1.3 candidates on average, radically fewer than in London’s 32 local boroughs. The aldermanic voting system is particularly open to manipulation. An old acquaintance and former Lord Mayor once told me that one explanation for the City’s sometimes reactionary instincts is a “shadow hanging over the whole structure” of the corporation’s supposedly democratic governance, Freemasonry. Close to a third of councillors are declared masons, including the chairs of nearly all the major committees. Three-quarters of Lord Mayors over the past century have been masons.

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On The Community Infrastructure Levy Neighbourhood Fund & The City Property Association

In 2021, when the City Property Association was awarded the CILNF grant, there were several other online platforms marketing the City as a leisure destination. The Corporation itself, the City BIDs (which the CPA, among others, lobbies for) and the CoLC’s Culture Mile programme’s numerous partners’ websites and social media hubs were all promoting events and “experiences” in the square mile at the same time. It is not clear in what way the One City platform offered a unique or innovative service adding value compared to the other promotional brands in the public domain, and a comparative appraisal of these does not appear to have been carried out by the Central Grants Unit before recommending that RASC should approve the grant to CPA. Instead, the CGU relied on information provided by the grant recipient, the CPA, and its sub-contractor New London Architecture.

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