A new report says that by giving elected mayors both greater powers and an increased mandate, local democracy and governance can be reinvigorated.
If the Left wants to restate its localist agenda, then looking again at elected mayors is a good place to start. After years of letting the mayoral agenda drift, despite repeated promises in general election manifestos, the Government should now look to reinvigorate local democracy through introducing a new mayoral governance model, pulling down powers from the corridors of Whitehall, closer to the people as a first step in further decentralisation.
The future holds a stark reduction in public sector funding no matter which party wins in May. In spite of increased efficiencies and the innovations in service delivery, this decrease in funding will inevitably mean difficult choices about local service provision.
In this climate it is more important than ever that local people feel engaged in the tough decisions that will have to be made, and know who is accountable for making them.
The New Local Government Network (NLGN) believes that by giving elected mayors both greater powers and an increased mandate, local democracy can be reinvigorated and governance brought down to a closer and more appropriate level.
The UK has one of the most centralised governance structures in the western world. Mayors could hold the key to shifting power from Whitehall to localities. By giving elected mayors the tools and powers they need, mayors would be able to further transform the way communities and citizens are served.
These powers should be centred on greater financial flexibility and increased control over public service delivery in a local area.
In itself, however, this does not hold the answers to greater involvement in local democracy. With public trust in politicians at an all time low, politics must be opened up. Too often the selection process for candidates at all levels is seen as a secretive, shadowy process, with very few members of the public actually involved to any degree.
It is high time these political processes are opened up, with the introduction of open primaries. This should be the domain of the progressive left – the parties of the people – who have the most to gain from this agenda, instead of trailing behind the right.
Government must urgently take another look at the mayoral model. With the strengthened mandate given by open primaries and the direct accountability of elected mayors, this new model could provide a prime opportunity for Labour’s rhetoric on localism and opportunity for all to be turned into action and reinvigorate local democracy.
Our guest writers are Nirmalee Wanduragala and Nick Hope, co-authors of the NLGN’s “New Model Mayors: Democracy, Devolution and Direction” report
17 Responses to “Directly elected mayors with increased powers will reinvigorate local governance”
Kevin
Oh dear, no. Really… no. Evidence that directly elected mayors reinigorate local democracy simply isn’t backed up by experience in the limited number of places where referenda have taken place to create them.
Take my own borough of Newham in east London. If only many of us who live here in the borough had realised eight years ago what we were letting ourselves in for when only 26% of the population turned about to vote in the referendum for a directly elected mayor, there might have been some actual concerted campaigning in favour of a ‘no’ vote. For far from helping to improve local accountability, as you have claimed, the direct election of our local mayor has seen the council turn into something akin to a eighteenth-century monarchy.
For all intents and purposes, Mayor Sir Robin Wales IS Newham council. No substantive decisions can be made without him but for an organisation the size of a local authority to function at all, many decisions must inevitably be made in his absence. The result is that every stratum of the council seeks to anticipate what the layer above might be thinking, all the way to the those closest to the brooding, ill-tempered and unpredictable ruler. Timidity crushes initiative, fear ingrains institutional inertia, culminating in a mixture of incompetence and officiousness . This isn’t the product of some great conspiracy – it’s just that everyone below the man at the top has the nominal trappings of power but none of the authority to make it meaningful. Those prepared to play safe and ingratiate themselves with the people immediately above them seem to survive, which probably explains the unbelievable mediocrity of some of the middle management within the council. Inventiveness and courage are just not worth risking a public sector pension for.
And what has happened, you might ask, to the backbench councillors providing the checks and balances of scrutiny and overview?
That would INDEED be a good question. The trouble is that 93% of them are members of the same party in an area where they don’t so much count the local Labour vote as weigh it. I realise, of course, that Newham isn’t alone in this respect: there are Labour and Tory councils around the country that dominate local political life and face little or no opposition. But creating a post as powerful as an elected mayor within such an environment, in Newham or anywhere else, simply makes matters worse.
With little apparent need to fight for votes, local politics loses its vibrancy and becomes little more than a struggle to secure the posts of Cabinet or executive member or ‘lead councillor’, which all attract a financial reward. Indeed, many of those who hold such positions in Newham are paid considerably more for representing their constituents than the average local wage. It’s understandable that the last person an ambitious councillor in the majority-party wants to upset is a Mayor who controls this patronage and the same is true of those who have become accustomed to describing their full-time job as ‘councillor’. Scrutiny and overview are not worth risking a demotion, political exile or the dole for.
And there is absolutely nothing we can do about this now. It is almost impossible for us to change the way we are governed if we decided we are no longer happy with the experiment of a directly elected mayor. Legislation isn’t much help: even if a petition was raised, the council would have to give its permission for a new referendum and, as I mentioned earlier, Sir Robin Wales effectively IS Newham council. Take a guess what the response would be.
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