An analysis of the policies introduced by the Office of the Mayor of Essay

An analysis of the policies introduced by the Office of the Mayor of London - Essay Example The GLA has power deliberated to perform duties in various parts of the city (Greater London Authority 2012). It has four bodies that range from the London Development agency, The Metropolitan police authority, which is in charge of security in the city, The Emergency planning authority that deals with the disaster, and the London fire brigade. The role of the mayor of London The mayor of London`s job basically ranges from developing policies, setting budgets, as well as ensuring that London is well marketed globally. The mayor has powers and duties to ensure that there is absolute promotion of both the economic social and environmental improvement (Greater London Authority 2012). That is perhaps what may be termed as â€Å"improving London for all†. Before putting any of his powers into action, the mayor has to first consult the city dwellers. Consequently, he must ensure that equality for all citizens is achieved. Being a mayor in London, means one is also in charge of all p olicies and plans for city. This covers all aspects ranging from panning, development, housing, health injustices, culture and other environmental issues including climate changes, noise pollution and health quality too. On improving London, the mayor has to set up budgets that must project the visions that improve London; this makes him to come up with the annual budget for the Greater London Authority and the entire GLA group, this includes the metropolitan police, fire brigade, transportation in London and the London Development agency (Great Britain: Parliament House of Commons: Justice Committee 2009). In addition to his duties, he holds executive positions, as well as non-executive ones, in different organizations. The need for reforms in housing policy The mayor argues that London has got the need to have better and quality housing delivered to the citizens. Due to long term housing pressure in London, it is evident that many have failed to meet the increasing demand of the r esidents in London. With this in mind, it is clear that the quality of life for London citizens have been clearly undermined especially for those who cannot afford the high rents for home in the open market. Despite the number of households registering as homeless decreasing over the years, the number of temporary accommodations has been increasing too. This leads to recording of two thirds of the total households in London. Over 150,000 household in London are overcrowded, this is more than half the total number nationwide. This means that overcrowding rates are now higher as compared to the private rented tenancies. The policies put in place would only do more harm than good because the estimated growth of the population would only increase to 80,000 by 2016 thus creating demand for over 300,000 households. Although the current new housing output is around 270000 new homes every year, only half of them can be affordable. Perhaps, that is why the London housing requirement study ha s identified a need to have 35000 increments of new homes yearly so as to meet the needs as per the projected growth (Greater London Authority 2012). According to the London Housing Capacity, there is enough land that can accommodate more than 31000 new homes every year. However, the significant increase in housing investments over the years means