Policing and public order

This paper traces the origins and charts the development and reform of the Metropolitan Police Service since its inception in 1829. It explores how the growing complexity of London's government, accentuated by the creation of the Greater London Council in 1965, reopened the debate for local government control of the metropolitan police. Not until the creation of the Greater London Authority in 2000, however, were changes in accountability of the Metropolitan Police finally put in place with the creation of the Metropolitan Police Authority as a functional body of the GLA. The paper reviews the working of this relationship over the past five years and considers the MPA's role in securing accountability.