Promoting Local Political Leadership

Abstract

The Labour government in its first term introduced a major change in the way that local authorities constructed their decision-making, moving from a system without a formal political executive to a system that installed a form of ‘separation of powers’ between an executive composed of elected representatives and a wider assembly of councillors operating through a system of overview and scrutiny committees and general meetings of the whole council. Three models of a separate executive were offered in the 2000 Local Government Act. The first option was for a person directly elected by the people (called the mayor). Alongside the mayor a wider group of councillors would be elected (called the council). From that group, the mayor would ask a small number of councillors (called the cabinet) to join her or him to share in the leadership of the local authority but with executive authority for making day-to-day decisions, within a framework and budget set by the council, remaining ultimately in the hands of the mayor. The second option was for an executive headed by a councillor chosen by fellow councillors (usually called a council leader). All councillors would be elected by the public and together would form the council. The council leader or the council would, in turn, choose a small group of councillors (a cabinet) to share the leadership of the authority. Executive authority in this model rests with the cabinet. The third option was a person directly elected by the public (given the title mayor) and a salaried chief executive officer appointed by the whole body of separately elected councillors who together would form the council. The mayor and the officer (usually known as the council manager) would together provide leadership to the authority and share executive authority. The Act required all local authorities serving populations of more than 85,000, that is the overwhelming majority of English councils, to choose one of the three models: mayor-cabinet, leader-cabinet or major-chief executive.