Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director &  Private Secretary to the Lord Mayor.

The Committee received a report of the Executive Director Private Secretary to the Lord Mayor outlining the proposed mayoral theme to be championed, subject to election, by the Lord Mayor of London 2024-25, Alderman Alastair King.

It was reported that, whilst each Lord Mayor took on the role of Ambassador for the UK Financial Professional Services Sector, each approached this in a way that they could best shine their own light on the position, taking into account their own expertise and background and thereby adding the most value to the role.

It was reported that Alderman King had been busy engaging with many external stakeholders, a broad range of teams across the organisation, Members and the Livery to develop his Mayoral Theme – Ambition, Renewal, Growth (working title) and some ideas around a draft programme to underpin this. A finalised version of this would be presented to the next meeting of this Committee. The theme intended to ensure that the City was recognised as a leading financial and professional services (FPS) hub and sought to empower the City and its communities to seize opportunities, maximise growth and succeed.

The programme was split into two themes – the first being competitiveness and the second communities. Competitiveness would have a focus on encouraging FPS to be adopters of tech and to challenge organisations to be responsible yet seize opportunities in terms of risk. Work to date with CityUK and the City’s own Communications and Corporate Affairs team indicated a lot of alignment with wider government policies. The communities element would work to ensure that there were opportunities for the City’s residents and communities to achieve as much as possible, for them to be celebrated and to shine a light on their contributions.

Work internally had been undertaken to ensure that the proposed theme would align with and help amplify ongoing work around the Corporate objectives and avoid unnecessary duplication. It would also lead on nicely from the current Lord Mayor’s work with universities and celebrating Science and Technology but also with elements of the two mayoralties prior to this making for a real opportunity for continuity.

Officers encouraged Aldermen to reach out with any suggestions they may have in terms of the working title of the Theme or the programme behind it given that there was still a window of opportunity between now and July for this to be finalised and further developed.

An Alderman requested that, in terms of competitiveness, specific consideration be given to what more might be done to support over 23,000 SME’s in the City, particularly as the organisation was now in the process of further developing its SME Strategy. Under communities, he suggested that this work also be tied into the City Corporation’s wider Cultural offering where possible.

An Alderman commented that Alderman King’s sessions promoting and developing the proposed mayoral theme to date had been extremely well attended by politicians and business figures amongst others. He underlined that it was about much more than having a theme for the Mayoral year but also about communicating the breadth of this and engaging wider stakeholders, bringing people together, with a view to effectively delegating aspects of this to external parties where it was possible to foster support. The Bishop of London had already, for example, expressed an interest in engaging with the proposed work around communities.

RESOLVED :– That the Committee note the draft Mayoral Theme.