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Command and control

The government has stated its intention to create mayors in England’s 12 largest metropolitan authorities. Peter Keith-Lucas analyses the plans and sets out the differences between Mayors and the new-style Leaders.

The coalition government, publicly committed to reducing central direction and returning choice to local communities, has decreed that each of the 12 major cities in England must hold a referendum on moving to a directly elected Mayor in place of its current Leader and Cabinet form of Executive which it chose in 2000.

The coalition government at one point seriously proposed that existing Leaders should be converted to Mayors by Act of Parliament, with public choice being relegated to a “confirmatory referendum” which would only take place once the change has been made. Had this democratic innovation been applied to devolution for Scotland and Wales, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly would have been set up first without any popular mandate, and the public only consulted as an afterthought.

Fortunately the coalition government has now realised how thoroughly undemocratic this would be, and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has now stated in Parliament that a positive referendum will be required before any authority changes over to a directly elected Mayor.

Option to return to the committee system

All this sits uncomfortably with the coalition government’s commitment to allow any local authority the freedom to move back to an old-style committee system if it so wishes, especially as the government has confirmed that it will still require authorities to go through the process of choosing an executive form of governance and electing a Mayor or Leader for a four-year term before they can consider moving to a committee system.

At the same time, the self-appointed “English Democrats” are collecting petitions to require every principal authority in England to hold a mayoral referendum. This coincides with the requirement for every district council in England with a Leader and Cabinet Executive, following the counties, London Boroughs and Metropolitan Councils, to choose between a Leader and Cabinet Executive and a directly elected Mayor.

So, what is the difference between a Leader and a Mayor, and does it matter?

Executive arrangements under the 2000 Act

The truth is that there is now far less difference between the two models than was once the case. When Cabinet Government was introduced in England by the Local Government Act 2000, each authority had a real discretion to choose a model of executive which best suited the individual authority. That choice was essentially between a Leader and Cabinet model of executive, or a directly-elected Mayor model (subject to its being confirmed in a mayoral referendum).

The “third option” of a directly elected Mayor without executive powers and an executive officer called the Council Manager was only adopted by Stoke on Trent City Council, proved pretty unworkable and was abolished by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.

The “fourth option” of alternative arrangements comprising retention of the committee system was only available to smaller district councils with a population of less than 85,000. But even within the Leader and Cabinet model it was possible to give the Council more or less power over the Leader by retaining the ability for Council to appoint and remove Cabinet members and by restricting the ability to delegate decisions to individual Cabinet members.

Changes under the 2007 Act

The Labour Government was unable to resist tinkering with these models, so the 2007 Act not only abolished the Mayor and Council Manager model but also required every authority with a Leader and Cabinet model to reconsider whether to adopt a directly elected Mayor and, if it wanted to retain a Leader and Cabinet model, to amend it to move the balance of power as far as possible in the direction of the Leader and away from the Council. So every Leader will have to be elected for a four-year term of office, with power to appoint and remove Cabinet members and complete freedom to delegate powers to individual Cabinet members.

Difficulties where no overall control

Arguably this is a step too far, further marginalising the ordinary councillor. In balanced authorities without a majority party, there will be real difficulty in finding a councillor whom a majority of councillors will trust with such absolute power for four years, and we are likely to see some authorities simply failing to elect a Leader. Even where a Leader is elected, the independence of the Leader from Council is likely to ensure that formal Council and scrutiny committees become much more confrontational, as they will be the only opportunities to hold the Leader to account. Where a Leader does lose political support, the four year term ensures a bloody succession battle rather than a diplomatic retirement at the next Annual Meeting.

It is precisely this concern which has led the new government to commit to giving every local authority the ability to return to a committee system in which every councillor has the opportunity to be involved in running council services, and the majority of decision-making is no longer reserved for the Leader and Cabinet. It remains a mystery how one can reconcile this commitment to local choice with the decision to impose Mayors in the 12 big cities by central edict.

Differences

So what are the differences between Mayors and the new-style Leaders?

Both Mayor and Leader will:

  • enjoy a four year term of office
  • decide which councillors to appoint to the Cabinet
  • decide how much decision-making to devolve to the Cabinet, or onward to individual Cabinet members
  • if they choose, be able to retain those powers to themselves and run much of the Council as a personal fiefdom, and
  • have to operate within the Budget and Policy Framework determined by Council, and with the staff provided by the Council.

The differences will be:

  • the Leader can be removed mid-term by a majority vote of Council, whereas the Mayor is in place until the next ordinary elections in four years’ time
  • because the Leader is elected by Council, they will broadly reflect the political composition of the Council and enjoy the support of the majority of Council, at least initially. In contrast, a Mayor is directly-elected, raising the distinct possibility of a Mayor who is dependent for Budget, staff and policy on a Council of a very different political colour
  • absence of a majority party on the Council will not prevent the direct election of the Mayor
  • against this, it is argued that the Mayor, with the mandate of direct election, may be able to provide stronger municipal “leadership” – perhaps an unfortunate turn of phrase in this context.

So, in return for the possibility of stronger leadership, a directly-elected Mayor offers a higher probability of political stalemate where they are opposed by a majority of directly-elected councillors. Arguably a Mayor is the antidote to the lack of direction of a balanced authority without a majority party, but that depends on whether or not you think that a coalition administration can work.

Peter Keith-Lucas is a partner in the commercial team at Bevan Brittan (www.bevanbrittan.com). He can be contacted on 0870 194 1741 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..