Wales also served as chairman of the Association of London Government, known as London Councils since 2006. London Councils is a think-tank and lobbying organisation which serves the interests of the 32 London borough councils, plus the City of London Corporation. Wales was recognised in the 2000 Birthday Honours, receiving a knighthood for his services to local government. Mayor of Newham In 2000 local authorities were granted the opportunity to directly elect an executive mayor with far-reaching decision-making powers. In this model of governance the mayor is directly elected by voters in the borough to serve for a period of four years. The elected mayor then chooses their cabinet, which must consist of no more than 10 councillors. In 2002 Newham held a referendum and voted for the replacement of the traditional leader and cabinet model with the new directly elected mayoral system. Wales became Labour's first directly elected mayor in England. He polled 20,384 votes (50.8%). He was re-elected in 2006, receiving 28,655 first preference votes (47.9%), with a further 2,983 second preferences; he achieved 68.2% in the final tally. Wales easily won a third term in 2010, with 64,748 votes (68.0%). Wales was part of the London 2012 Board which was involved in the Olympic and Paralympic Games bid for London. Social regeneration was at the heart of the London bid and was instrumental in securing the right to host in 2005. Wales has held a position on the Boards of both the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), which was renamed the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) in 2012. He also chaired the Six Host Boroughs group which represented the interests of those boroughs most affected by the 2012 Games. In 2014 Wales was elected for a fourth term as mayor. He received 47,095 votes (61.2%). In 2016 Wales won a vote of party members and affiliates to automatically re-select him as Labour candidate for the 2018 mayoral election, rather than holding an open selection. All 60 council seats in Newham are controlled by Labour. However, a number of Labour Party members questioned the process, claiming that the Party's rules were broken because they were applied differently to different affiliated organisations, with some unions with several branches being given multiple votes whilst others who also had multiple branches were under the impression that they only had one vote.