The governance of our towns and cities has become increasingly complex: Where does power lie? Who, at a local level has responsibility for our schools, rubbish and health service? How can ordinary citizens effectively interact with the kaleidoscope of public bodies and institutions that make decisions over our lives?

The governance of our towns and cities has become increasingly complex: Where does power lie? How can ordinary citizens effectively interact with the kaleidoscope of public bodies and institutions that make decisions that impact upon our lives?

Central to Operation Black Vote’s (OBV) work has been the empowerment of Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities so that they can play a full and positive role in civic society and thereby have greater control over their daily lives. A key aspect of empowerment is to have an increased understanding of  public decision-making bodies such as the Greater London Authority, National Health Trusts, and the London Councils.

In what has been an exciting partnership with the London Councils, OBV have sought to bridge the gap between citizen and the city’s governance. In ´Who runs my city? London ’, we have attempted to physically map out key bodies and institutions that make up the city’s governance. This is coupled with an in-depth booklet on the functions of the various public bodies’, the people who run them, and how to make contact. Furthermore, we have also tried to give concrete examples of why an individual, organization or group would seek to engage with any of these bodies.

Few may know for example the role of the Local Government Ombudsmen is to investigate complaints of injustice arising from maladministration by local authorities. They are charged with investigating your complaints in areas such as delays in processing a housing benefit claim, delays in carrying out repairs leading to unsatisfactory housing conditions, or an authority’s failure to investigate noisy neighbours.

We have also highlighted all the city’s elected representatives at a national and local and European level. Here we very much urge individuals and organisations to hold their elected representatives to account.  To ensure greater representation of BME communities on public bodies we also encourage individuals to put themselves forward for one of the many appointment roles such as health trustees, magistrates and school governors.

This is our first attempt of putting together all the national, and regional, bodies in one booklet. We have strived to ensure that we have included all public bodies, but we hope that you can help identify any missing so we can have a continually improving and comprehensive booklet.

Finally, I would like to thank the author Andrew Holden, project coordinator Ashok Viswanathan, and the London Councils for backing this project.

Be empowered!



Simon Woolley
Director OBV