Clark: not the end of the road for city mayors
Author: Dan Drillsma-Milgrom, LGC |
The elected mayoral model for cities is not off the table, local government minister Greg Clark has insisted – despite it being rejected by nine out of the 10 cities voting on it last week.
Speaking to LGC in the wake of last week’s mayoral referendums, Mr Clark insisted that with Leicester, Liverpool and Salford city councils now run by mayors, and with Bristol set to join them in November, there was now a sufficient core of cities with elected mayors and more would likely follow.
Mr Clark also insisted that so-called ‘metro mayors’, encompassing entire city regions rather than just city council boundaries, could also emerge.
While he described the nine ‘no’ votes as “disappointing”, Mr Clark said Bristol’s acceptance of the mayoral model, and the election of Joe Anderson (Lab) and Ian Stewart (Lab) as mayors of Liverpool and Salford was “a big step forward”.
Asked whether the ‘no’ votes meant creating more mayors was off the table for the foreseeable future, he said “quite the contrary”.
“Sometimes change comes step by step through demonstration rather than revolution,” he said.
“Those four cities will prosper and be examples of what can be achieved and others will watch with great interest and will have a chance to join them in the future, either with city mayors or metro mayors.”
Asked how metro mayors might be created, he said proposals would have to come from the councils involved and would not be forced on any area. He cited Merseyside as one place where a metro mayor could emerge.
“In Liverpool, the authorities got together and discussed having a metro mayor and I was asked to facilitate that and pass the legislation to make it happen,” he said.
“I said that I would if all the authorities agreed. In the end they agreed to just go for a mayor for the city council for now and see how they go.”
Mr Clark insisted the government’s cities policy wasn’t limited to questions of governance and made it clear that groups of councils that came together to create combined authorities like Greater Manchester would also have met the government’s test for strong governance models.
Speaking to LGC in the wake of his election as mayor of Salford, Mr Stewart said he had no plans to scrap the role of the council’s chief executive. Communities secretary Eric Pickles had said elected mayors would have executive powers and not need a chief executive.
But Mr Stewart told LGC: “I’ve looked at the experiments across the country and all have failed when they got rid of the chief executive and ended up recruiting a new one at a later stage.
“Where an elected mayor has a history in local government that [the chiefless model] may work,” he added.
“But as far as I’m concerned, the chief executive is the senior paid professional who brings legal expertise and other attributes that I don’t have. My role is to set the political vision and ensure officers work towards that.”
Mr Stewart also said he had not considered what extra powers he should have as mayor.
“Where an elected mayor has a history in local government that [the chiefless model] may work,” he added. “But as far as I’m concerned, the chief executive is the senior paid professional who brings legal expertise and other attributes that I don’t have. My role is to set the political vision and ensure officers work towards that.”
The government has delayed a consultation on what new powers elected mayors should have until after the new mayors were in place. But Mr Stewart said that he had not thought about what extra powers he should have as an elected mayor. He also said he was a “strong supporter” of the work done by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) and pledged to work with the other nine member authorities.
He denied that his personal electoral mandate made him ‘first amongst equals’ with the other Greater Manchester leaders.
“We are dealing with human beings and human relations are very complex,” he said. “I know that the only powers I have in terms of AGMA or anything else is down to my integrity and actions.”