Research and analysis

Greater London Authority readiness check: summary

Updated 23 April 2026

Applies to England

Summary of findings

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Greater London Authority (GLA) has a clear, long-term strategic framework, mature core governance, and strong arrangements for risk, finance, and central government engagement. GLA was assessed as ‘Embedded’ at a whole system level, with elements of ‘Leading’ practice.

A real passion and energy, at all levels, for the outcomes that GLA is trying to achieve was identified. This has helped to embed a clear golden thread between the strategy and delivery programmes. There was good transparency about both the organisation’s strengths, and the areas for improvement, which are reflected in the report.

The Integrated Settlement has strategic importance, and leadership has welcomed this as a catalyst for change. This includes enhancements to process and governance arrangements that were already planned, for example further investment in and strengthening of the already established Programme Management Office.

Strategy, planning and governance – Embedded to Leading

GLA has a well-established long term strategic framework led by the Mayor, with a clear golden thread linking London level outcomes, strategic programmes and delivery plans. This provides clarity on priorities and supports coherent decision making across the organisation. Governance forums are clearly defined and well embedded, with the Mayoral Delivery Board providing oversight of delivery, performance and risk. Roles, accountabilities and escalation routes are widely understood.

People and capability – Embedded to Leading

Senior sponsorship and accountability for the Integrated Settlement are clear, with the Chief Financial Officer acting as Senior Responsible Owner. Governance arrangements are clearly defined and roles and responsibilities for delivery and oversight are documented, understood and aligned to delivery plans. There is strong evidence of collaborative working across directorates.

Financial and performance management – Embedded

GLA operates robust, centrally owned budget setting, forecasting and in year monitoring processes. Financial management is well integrated with governance and performance reporting, and the mayoral decision-making framework provides a consistent, well understood route for approving spend and managing financial risk.

Reporting and evaluation – Embedded

Performance management is aligned to strategic outcomes and delivered through a structured quarterly reporting cycle. The use of Asana, a cloud-based project management platform, as a single source of truth is improving transparency and consistency from existing disparate systems. Evaluation practices are aligned to HM Treasury Magenta Book principles with evidence that lessons learned are implemented.

Recommendations

Strategy, planning and governance

• Recommendation 1: Local assurance framework sign off. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) approval should be sought and secured in relation to the GLA’s local assurance provisions. (Priority 2)
• Recommendation 3: Annual business planning. To move towards leading, the GLA could build greater agility and flexibility into its annual business planning cycle to respond to changes in context and enable continuous alignment with strategic priorities, including more frequent review sessions and earlier escalation of in‑year changes. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 4: Skills mapping. To move towards leading, the GLA could formalise a forward‑looking skills‑mapping process for governance forums, proportionate to the scale and risk of the Integrated Settlement, to identify future skills gaps and training needs. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 5: Defined escalation process. To progress towards leading, the GLA could develop and document a risk escalation process, including thresholds, responsibilities and routes for raising issues, to promote consistency across governance forums. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 6: Continuous improvement. To strengthen governance maturity, the GLA could increase structured self‑evaluation and continuous improvement, for example by using a regular Corporate Management Team slot to review governance performance, terms of reference and effectiveness. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 7: Delegations framework. The GLA could deliver planned updates to the mayoral decision‑making framework to align it with new delivery planning arrangements and Integrated Settlement funding flows, supported by a formal and regularly updated review process. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 8: Training on decision‑making and delegations. The GLA could enhance its training offer by expanding its mandatory induction module to new budget holders and programme leads, and refreshing existing training to support consistent understanding of thresholds, consultation and record‑keeping requirements. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 9: Risk management training. To move towards leading, the GLA could strengthen mechanisms for tracking completion of risk management training, gathering feedback and tailoring training by role, including for programme leads and budget holders. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 10: Risk governance. To move towards leading, the GLA could consider transitioning from the current Audit Panel model to a full Audit Committee, to strengthen risk visibility and challenge across the organisation. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 11: Integration and risk appetite. To move towards leading, the GLA could strengthen linkages between project, programme and corporate risks, and more clearly articulate how risk appetite informs prioritisation and assurance activity. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 12: Integrated Settlement assurance map. To progress towards leading, the GLA could produce a short, practical assurance map for the Integrated Settlement, identifying key IS risks, first, second and third‑line assurance arrangements, and the planned cadence of assurance activity. (Priority 4)

People and capability

• Recommendation 13: Roles and responsibilities. To move towards leading, the GLA could produce a clear document setting out the team structure, responsibilities and reporting lines for individuals responsible for implementing the Integrated Settlement. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 14: Project management. To reach leading, the GLA should continue embedding and fully resourcing its new Corporate PMO to strengthen portfolio‑level oversight and consistency across directorates. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 15: Delivery‑phase governance. To achieve leading, the GLA could continue developing a dedicated governance structure for the delivery phase of the Integrated Settlement, building on lessons from the preparedness phase. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 16: Grants ownership operating model. To maximise the impact of the new grants system, the GLA should update and embed a comprehensive organisational operating model for end‑to‑end grant lifecycle management, clearly defining roles, responsibilities, decision‑making and assurance requirements. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 17: Strategic resource planning. The GLA should further scale and embed its integrated approach to resource allocation to support proactive long‑term planning, clearer prioritisation and improved visibility across Integrated Settlement and non‑Integrated Settlement activity, including regular cross‑portfolio resourcing reviews. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 18: Contingent resourcing. To move towards leading, the GLA could embed proactive contingent resourcing within its strategic resource planning framework. (Priority 4)

Financial and performance management

• Recommendation 2: Funding flexibilities process. The GLA should set out a short, practical funding flexibility approach within existing financial regulations and delivery‑plan guidance, clarifying principles for reallocation, escalation thresholds, documentation expectations and the use of existing quarterly finance and performance cycles to agree and record flexibility decisions. (Priority 2)
• Recommendation 19: Budget framework. To move towards leading, the GLA could embed an explicit Integrated Settlement lens into the existing Group and GLA budget framework, including a consolidated internal view of IS income and expenditure, updated finance guidance and clear tagging of IS‑related spend within existing tools. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 20: Forecasting and monitoring framework. To move towards leading, the GLA could ensure Integrated Settlement funding is consistently identified within existing forecasting and monitoring processes, strengthen forecast narratives for IS‑related grants and explicitly consider medium‑term IS assumptions during budget and in‑year challenge processes. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 21: In‑year financial information. The GLA could transition over time towards a more continuous, analytics‑enabled financial management approach, including real‑time or near‑real‑time dashboards, integrated data and predictive analytics to identify emerging risks and opportunities earlier. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 22: Better business case training. To reach leading, the GLA could require all business case authors and reviewers to complete better business case training. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 23: Business case guidance. The GLA could codify how programme‑level mayoral decisions, project‑level decisions and SRO delegations interact as a coherent business‑case and decision pathway, supported by clearer guidance and reusable examples of good practice. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 24: Ownership of grants and contracts. The GLA should embed clear, accountable ownership within funding templates, consistently capturing senior ownership, budget accountability and day‑to‑day contract management responsibilities. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 25: Defined outcomes and conditions. Grant agreement and management templates should be updated to require explicit mapping of contracted outcomes to relevant GLA strategic outcomes. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 26: Performance management standard. The GLA could introduce a minimum, organisation‑wide performance management standard by codifying existing controls into a single operating standard and tracking adherence through central assurance. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 27: Programme phasing. Phasing could be standardised across the portfolio through a consistent programme lifecycle model with defined stages, review points and progression criteria. (Priority 4)

Reporting and evaluation

• Recommendation 28: KPI monitoring. The GLA could strengthen corporate performance oversight by adding a concise portfolio‑level summary and a small core set of measures to the quarterly performance pack, providing a clearer cross‑GLA view of overall delivery and key interdependencies. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 29: Content and data quality. Embedding Asana more fully across the organisation will support a move towards leading practice by enabling standardised, automated reporting and clearer insight into value, impact and priorities. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 30: Benefits monitoring. To move towards leading, the GLA could establish a planned schedule of periodic, in‑depth benefits reviews to identify root causes where outcomes are off‑track and strengthen consistency and rigor of benefits monitoring. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 31: Lessons learned. To progress towards leading, the GLA could maintain a centralised lessons‑learned log to capture insights consistently, identify themes and support learning across future activity. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 32: Systems integration. To move towards leading, the GLA could further define a single version of the truth for key measures, embed data quality management processes, complete system integrations across core platforms and expand automated reporting to reduce reliance on manual management information. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 33: Salesforce migration assurance. While the new system is expected to improve grants management, the GLA could consider formally assessing whether Salesforce meets the necessary control and process requirements ahead of full go‑live. (Priority 4)
• Recommendation 34: Central government reporting alignment. To progress towards leading, the GLA could strengthen alignment between information provided to MHCLG and other government departments and that seen internally by senior GLA leadership, sharing the same dashboards, risks and performance narratives where appropriate. (Priority 4)

1. This summary of findings has been extracted from the Integrated Settlement readiness check report prepared by an independent advisor. The report has been prepared only for Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and solely for the purpose, and on the terms agreed with MHCLG. The independent advisor accepts no liability (including for negligence) to anyone else in connection with this summary of findings or the report. ↩