The London Borough of Tower Hamlets and its council were created under the
London Government Act 1963, with the first election held
in 1964. For its first year the council acted as a shadow authority alongside the area's three outgoing authorities, being the three
metropolitan borough councils of
Bethnal Green,
Poplar and
Stepney. The new council formally came into its powers on 1 April 1965, at which point the old boroughs and their councils were abolished. The council's full legal name is "The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets", but it styles itself Tower Hamlets Council. From 1965 until 1986 the council was a lower-tier authority, with upper-tier functions provided by the
Greater London Council. The split of powers and functions meant that the Greater London Council was responsible for "wide area" services such as fire, ambulance,
flood prevention, and
refuse disposal; with the boroughs (including Tower Hamlets) responsible for "personal" services such as social care, libraries, cemeteries and
refuse collection. The Greater London Council was abolished in 1986 and its functions passed to the London Boroughs, with some services provided through joint committees. Tower Hamlets became a
local education authority in 1990 when the
Inner London Education Authority was dissolved. From 1986 to 1994 the council experimented with decentralisation of services to seven neighbourhood areas. Since 2000 the
Greater London Authority has taken some responsibility for highways and planning control from the council, but within the
English local government system the council remains a "most purpose" authority in terms of the available range of powers and functions. In 2008 the council named two tower blocks in Sidney Street as 'Peter House' and 'Painter House' after
Peter the Painter, a
Latvian anarchist gangster reputedly involved in the
Siege of Sidney Street in 1911, whose true identity is not known. Having escaped capture, he had become an
anti-hero in the
East End. A local councillor and the
Metropolitan Police Federation protested against the naming, saying that he should not be honoured. In 2010, following a referendum, the
directly elected role of
Mayor of Tower Hamlets was created to serve as the council's political leader.
Lutfur Rahman was elected as the first such mayor. He was re-elected in 2014, but the result of that election was declared void the following year in the case of
Erlam v Rahman at the
Election Court, which reported Rahman and one of the councillors to be guilty of
electoral fraud under the
Representation of the People Act 1983. He was thus removed from his office with immediate effect and was also barred from standing for elected office until 2021. The police subsequently carried out an investigation into whether criminal charges should be brought against anyone involved regarding the electoral fraud, but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to do so. Labour's
John Biggs won the subsequent mayoral by-election following Rahman's removal in 2015, and retained the post at the 2018 election. Rahman's ban on standing for office expired in 2021, allowing him to contest the mayoralty again in 2022. He stood under the banner of a new local party called Aspire. Rahman defeated Biggs for the mayoralty, and Aspire also won a majority of the seats on the council. In February 2023, the chief executive of the
Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) said he had concerns about the management of the council under Aspire and believed that government intervention may be necessary. ==Powers and functions==