As of 2024[update], the London boroughs are more or less identical to those created in 1965, although with some enhanced powers over services such as waste management and education.

The provisions of the act came into effect on 1 April 1965, the new councils having been elected as "shadow authorities" in 1964.

Three Middlesex urban districts not included in Greater London were transferred to other counties: Potters Bar to Hertfordshire and Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames to Surrey.

The councils to become part of the London Borough of Barnet suggested "Northgate" or "Northern Heights" as names.

The split of functions between the new authorities were:[6] A royal commission was appointed in 1957 under the chairmanship of Sir Edwin Herbert to consider future local government structures in Greater London.

The Greater London area set up by the 1963 Act was very similar to that proposed by the Herbert Report but excluded Banstead, Caterham and Warlingham, Esher, Walton and Weybridge in Surrey, Chigwell in Essex, Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and Staines and Sunbury in Middlesex.

Lewisham would be standalone, Deptford would combine with Camberwell and Bermondsey, and Southwark and Lambeth would unite.

Requests from the councils of Romford, Barnet, Carshalton, Coulsdon and Purley, Feltham, Yiewsley and West Drayton to be removed from the area were turned down.

Changes published in August 1962 saw a reduction from 33 to 32 boroughs, and in greater detail, Shoreditch to join Hackney; Wanstead and Woodford to be added to Ilford to form 'Redbridge' rather than join Waltham Forest; Chislehurst and Sidcup to be divided between the Bromley and the Bexley; East Barnet, Friern Barnet, Hendon, and Finchley to form a single borough (Barnet), Enfield to join Edmonton and Southgate (to be simply Enfield), the Tottenham, Hornsey and Wood Green authorities to combine to form Haringey and at the most local level, Clapham and Streatham neighbourhoods to join Lambeth.

[9] The slightly amended form was laid before Parliament for substantive debates from November 1962 until April 1963.

Ministerial proponents of the Bill advanced its smooth passage summarising the Royal Commission's Report: One of those basic strands is that London Government must reflect the physical fact that Greater London is a single city with a recognisable existence of its own: it is a living organism with its heart, its limbs and its lungs.

Secondly, the Government regard it as vital that the functions that need to be exercised over the whole of Greater London should be in the hands of a body with real positive powers.

[11]...but [in] ordinary human speech, how is it that such people can be so appalled at acknowledging that they live in what is the greatest capital city in the world?

[13]The leaders and all members of the Opposition in both houses saw the Bill as being partisan, opposed London's re-casting and celebrated its predecessor: ...you mean to go through with this execution of the London County Council because they have been so successful and they have been so strongly supported for 28 years by the electorate.

Former Labour Home Secretary James Chuter Ede, a retired Surrey magistrate and county councillor, co-led the opposition in Committee, having met residents who were all "resolutely and determinedly opposed to the Bill."