Proposals in UK’s Localism Bill in England to create elected Mayors with executive powers in the major cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Wakefield have been dropped.
This does not mean that such directly elected Mayor roles cannot be created by councils but that it will not be compulsory for the above cities to do so.
London has its own elected Mayor (Boris Johnson) with significant powers and some other urban centres already have elected Mayors.
At the Local Government elections earlier this year three elected mayors gained new terms in office, one incumbent was voted out of office and one Council gained its first elected Mayor. Former MP Sir Peter Soulsby (Labour) was elected as Leicester City Council’s (a Unitary Council) first elected Mayor after securing more than four times the number of votes over his closest rival.
Sir Peter, who resigned his House of Commons seat in March 2011 to stand for the City Council role, took 55 per cent of the cast votes with a turnout of 40.7 per cent.
Torbay Council (a Unitary Council) elected a new Mayor in the shape of Gordon Oliver (Conservative), who polled 12,716 to defeat incumbent Nick Bye (Independent) with 9,361 votes.
In Middlesbrough Borough Council (a Unitary Council), Ray Mallon (Independent) was returned to a third term as Mayor, as was Mansfield District Council’s Tony Eggington (Independent).
Bedford Borough Council’s (a Unitary Council) Mayor Dave Hodgson (Liberal Democrat) was re-elected for a second term at the Council.
At Great Yarmouth Borough Council (a District Council) residents voted against the introduction of a directly elected Mayor by a margin of three to two.
At Leicester City Council the new Mayor is proposing to do away with the role of Chief Executive with the role being subsumed into the role of Mayor.
The statutory role of Head of Paid Service would be retained. So far this approach has not been widely followed.
It is vitally important that there is clarity about the roles and responsibilities of politicians and managers. The roles of elected Mayor and Leader of a Council are very different to the role of Chief Executive. They require different skills and experience.
Elected Mayors are full time paid appointments and signal a significant development in the operation of local democracy.
Many councillors devote a considerable amount of time to their roles and are paid allowances but the creation of salaried elected Mayors with extensive executive powers creates a new dynamic in local governance.
Such posts may encourage more career politicians into Local Government seeing these roles as an alternative to, or stepping stone to, Parliament. The culture of councils is likely to change as a result.
It will be interesting to see if more councils and communities go down the road of elected Mayors. If they do it is essential that the elected Mayor has the right managerial support to ensure that strategic agendas are developed and implemented effectively. The most successful councils have effective partnerships working between their political and managerial leaderships. This will remain the case.
*Malcolm Morley is Chief Executive of Harlow District Council and can be contacted via the Editor, email info@lgfocus.com.au The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of his employer.
