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The London boroughs are the current 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London, England; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at the same time as Greater London on 1 April 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 (c. 33) and are a type of local government district. Twelve were designated as Inner London boroughs and twenty as Outer London boroughs. The City of London, the historic centre, is a separate ceremonial county and sui generis local government district that functions quite differently from a London borough. However, the two counties together comprise the administrative area of Greater London as well as the London Region, all of which is also governed by the Greater London Authority, under the Mayor of London.
The London boroughs have populations of between 150,000 and 400,000. Inner London boroughs tend to be smaller, in both population and area, and more densely populated than Outer London boroughs. The London boroughs were created by combining groups of former local government units. A review undertaken between 1987 and 1992 led to a number of relatively small alterations in borough boundaries. London borough councils provide the majority of local government services (schools, waste management, social services, libraries), in contrast to the strategic Greater London Authority, which has limited authority over all of Greater London.
The councils were first elected in 1964, and acted as shadow authorities until 1 April 1965. Each borough is divided into electoral wards, subject to periodic review, for the purpose of electing councillors. Council elections take place every four years, with the most recent elections in 2022, and the next elections due in 2026. The political make-up of London borough councils is dominated by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. Twenty-eight councils follow the leader and cabinet model of executive governance, while five have directly elected mayors (Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets). The City of London is instead governed by the City of London Corporation (and the Inner Temple and Middle Temple Temples, which are not governed by the City of London Corporation).
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There are four boroughs that do not have "London Borough" in their official names: the City of Westminster, and the Royal Boroughs of Kingston upon Thames, Kensington and Chelsea, and Greenwich.
The Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London was established in 1957 and the report was published on 19 October 1960. It proposed 52 "Greater London Boroughs" with a population range of 100,000 to 250,000. This was made up of a mixture of whole existing units, mergers of two or three areas, and two boroughs formed as the result of a split. In December 1961 the government proposed that there would be 34 boroughs rather than 52, and detailed their boundaries. The proposed number was further reduced to 32 in 1962.
On 1 April 1965, the 32 London boroughs and Greater London were created by the London Government Act 1963. Twelve boroughs in the former County of London area were designated Inner London boroughs and the 20 others were designated Outer London boroughs. Outer London borough councils were local education authorities, but Inner London borough councils were so designated primarily to continue the existence of an Inner London Education Authority, praised by official Opposition and government who further noted that unusually the former County of London's many small local authorities had no history of providing education. The City of London continued to be administered by the City of London Corporation, and the Inner Temple and Middle Temple Temples continued to govern their own areas.
Elections were held on 7 May 1964, with the new councils acting as shadow authorities before coming into their powers the following year.
[[File:Greater London composite parts.PNG|600px|thumb|center|Former local authorities in the Greater London area
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| Camden | Inner | |
| Greenwich | Inner | |
| Hackney | Inner | |
| Hammersmith | Inner | |
| Islington | Inner | |
| Kensington and Chelsea | Inner | |
| Lambeth | Inner | |
| Lewisham | Inner | |
| Southwark | Inner | |
| Tower Hamlets | Inner | |
| Wandsworth | Inner | |
| Westminster | Inner | |
| Barking | Outer | |
| Barnet | Outer | Friern Barnet (31e) |
| Bexley | Outer | |
| Brent | Outer | |
| Bromley | Outer | Chislehurst and Sidcup (part) (20d) |
| Croydon | Outer | |
| Ealing | Outer | |
| Enfield | Outer | |
| Haringey | Outer | |
| Harrow | Outer | |
| Havering | Outer | |
| Hillingdon | Outer | |
| Hounslow | Outer | |
| Kingston upon Thames | Outer | |
| Merton | Outer | |
| Newham | Outer | |
| Redbridge | Outer | |
| Richmond upon Thames | Outer | |
| Sutton | Outer | |
| Waltham Forest | Outer |
The London boroughs were created by combining whole existing units of local government and it was realised that this might provide arbitrary boundaries in some places. The London Government Act 1963 provided a mechanism for communities on the edge of Greater London to petition for transfer from London boroughs to a neighbouring county district.London Government Act 1963 Section 6 (4) This was used in 1969 in the transfers of Knockholt in Bromley to Kent, and of Farleigh and Hooley in Croydon to Surrey. The Act also provided for transfers between London boroughs and neighbouring counties where there was consensus for the change between all the relevant local authorities. This provision was used to exchange two islands on the River Thames between Richmond upon Thames and Surrey. (See List of Greater London boundary changes.)
The Local Government Boundary Commission for England was established by the Local Government Act 1972 to review periodically the boundaries of Greater London and the London boroughs. The first review of boundaries commenced on 1 April 1987 and reported in 1992. Following the review a series of relatively minor adjustments were made to borough boundaries, for example uniting the whole of the Becontree estate in Barking and Dagenham. The commission noted that many of its recommendations were strongly opposed and were not implemented. The boundary of the City of London with adjacent boroughs was adjusted to remove some anomalies.
The London boroughs were incorporated using the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882. In the London boroughs the legal entity is not the council, as elsewhere in the country, but the inhabitants incorporated as a legal entity by royal charter (a process abolished elsewhere in England and Wales under the Local Government Act 1972). Thus, a London authority's official legal title is "The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of X" (or "The Lord Mayor and Citizens of the City of Westminster").
The management thinker and inventor of the Vanguard Method, Professor John Seddon, claims that shared service projects based on attempts to achieve economies of scale are a mix of a) the plausibly obvious and b) a little hard data, brought together to produce two broad assertions, for which there is little hard factual evidence. He argues that shared service projects fail (and often end up costing more than they hoped to save) because they cause a disruption to the service flow by moving the work to a central location, creating waste in hand-offs, rework and duplication, lengthening the time it takes to deliver a service and consequently creating failure demand (demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for a customer).Systems Thinking in the Public Sector, John Seddon, Page 57. Seddon referred directly to the so-called tri-borough shared services in an article in 2012.
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