Essay About Greater London Authority And Audit Commission

Trasport For London
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Introduction
Summary of Initial Performance Assessment judgements
Summary of assessment scores
Next steps — improvement planning
Context
What is TfL trying to achieve?
How has TfL set about delivering its priorities?
What has TfL achieved/not achieved to date?
In the light of what TfL has learned to date, what does it plan to do next?
Summary of theme scores and strengths/weaknesses
1 The Audit Commission has recently undertaken an Initial Performance Assessment (IPA) of the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the functional bodies which form the GLA group. The purpose of this assessment is to examine the current performance by the GLA and the functional bodies in the delivery of their services, and their ability to improve.

2 IPA is based on the same principles and methodology as the Commission’s programme of Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of councils throughout England. CPA is part of the wider improvement agenda set out in the local government white paper Strong Local Leadership — Quality Public Services. The white paper encourages greater focus on improved services for local people by freeing good authorities from central government controls and restrictions, and providing poorer authorities with more, better focused support for improvement. CPA is the first step in this process, that of making an overall judgement of where each authority stands.

3 Transport for London (TfL) is one of the functional bodies in the GLA group. The others are: the London Development Agency, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, and the Metropolitan Police Authority. This report presents an analysis of TfL’s overall performance.

4 The official version of this report is also available on the Audit Commission’s web site at www.audit-commission.gov.uk. The Audit Commission cannot verify the accuracy of and is not responsible for material contained in this report that may have been reproduced by another organisation or individual.

Summary of Initial Performance Assessment judgements
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5 Transport for London is an excellent organisation. It has a clear vision of what it is seeking to achieve and has made good progress in the way in which it has set out to deliver its priorities. In its relatively short life it has already secured some significant improvements to transport in London and it is developing and implementing robust plans for further improvements.

6 TfL has a clear and ambitious vision for transport in London that is derived from the Mayor’s Transport Strategy and the government’s transport policies. It has a good understanding of the problems and opportunities affecting transport in London now and in the future and understands the impact it has on non-transport issues such as crime and equality. The vision of an integrated transport system is shared across TfL and by many of its partners. TfL has a strong business plan which, coupled with strong leadership and effective management, sets out the agenda for TfL in the medium and longer term.

7 The ambition is supported by clear priorities and TfL’s use of scenario-based financial planning enables it to target its resources to those priorities. TfL organises itself by mode of transport. Each mode has the flexibility to recycle savings to priorities, but this practice does not extend to the reallocation of resources between modes to address corporate priorities. Additional income from the congestion charging scheme has been spent in addressing general transport priorities such as road safety and bus network improvements. TfL has not identified any explicit non-priorities. It has identified areas which are lower priorities, such as major road improvements.

8 TfL has demonstrated an ability to focus on key issues and projects to ensure that they are delivered. It has strong mechanisms in place to ensure that it focuses its work on priority areas and meetings are well-structured with clear decision-making. It has not been distracted by the addition of London Underground to the TfL group. TfL’s ability to focus has contributed to its significant achievements in the delivery of its ambition. Projects such as the congestion charge and bus improvements have significantly improved target areas of transport provision and relieved congestion. The overall quality of transport services, given the context in which they operate, is good. Areas that are improving less quickly are lesser priorities, or can only be addressed in the longer term, such as improving the underground.

9 TfL has the overall capacity and skills that it needs to deliver further improvements to services, but has specific capacity problems in some key internal areas such as human resources and procurement. TfL is actively addressing these areas through initiatives such as the efficiencies review and introducing a shared service centre for human resources. TfL, as an amalgam of a number of predecessor organisations, has the desire to become �one TfL’, although it has further work to do to achieve this. It is also investing in its partnership working and in areas that have a direct impact on the quality of life of Londoners such as tackling crime through the introduction of the Transport Operational Command Unit (TOCU). TfL has increased its contract monitoring and performance management capacity to enable it to manage the large and complex public private partnership (PPP) and private finance initiative (PFI) contracts.

However, it is unclear whether its extensive use of consultants for a range of activities has helped TfL to build its internal capacity. Business cases in support of the use of consultants state the predicted benefits but there is no evidence of systematic post-implementation review to ensure that expected benefits were realised.

10 TfL has a track record for opening itself up to challenge in some areas. The board, panels and committees provide effective internal scrutiny by reviewing and challenging projects and decisions. However, the fact that panels and committees are held in private limits public accountability and transparency. Internal scrutiny is supplemented by effective challenge from GLA officers and the Mayor’s office. The London Assembly was consulted on and provided an input to the development of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. However,