Why elected mayors

Oslo: Kommuneforlaget. Lijphart, Arend: Democracies. London: Yale University Press. March, James G. Sergiovanni and J. Corbally eds : Leadership and Organizational Cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Meyer, John W. CrossRef Google Scholar. Oslo: Kornmunaldepartementet Google Scholar. Pedersen, Mogens E. Municipal Elections. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag. Piazza, Gianni: Sindaci e Politiche in Sicilia.

Soveria Mannelli: Rubbetino. Sweeting, David: Leadership, scrutiny or mutiny? New councillor roles in local government in the UK. Helge O. Thus, the largest political party, or a coalition of parties, forms a majority group which controls the council. The next largest group forms the opposition. The political party that captures the greatest number of seats dominates the decision-making process. In contests where three or more parties stand, the winning candidate frequently receives fewer than 50 percent of the votes cast.

Thus, the electoral system often delivers hung councils, that is, councils in which no single party holds more than half the seats available. The local government structure and the distribution of functions and powers between Mayor and council. The structure of local authorities may vary from one municipality to another depending on the number of inhabitants. In the case of municipalities with a small number of inhabitants i.

They gather in an assembly that has the power to make decisions. Nevertheless, the system described above is an exception, since the majority of the municipalities adopt a different structure Fanlo Lora, A.

This structure is as follows:. A mayor and a committee of councillors have executive functions. The committee is chosen by the mayor Ortega, , that is, the mayor forms a cabinet from among the councillors. The mayor and committee hold most of the executive powers Copus, C.

However, there are regular meetings of the full council, presided over by the mayor or chairman, which all members of the authority attend. Committee members have responsibility for particular areas of policy, and the mayor can delegate executive powers to such members, individually or collectively.

This committee is not required to be politically balanced, since it can consist of members of just one party. The executive can, thus, formally be made up of a single political party or a coalition of parties. The council or backbench councillors represent their electorate, share in the policy and budget decisions of the full council, suggest policy improvements, scrutinize the executive, and pass secondary legislation.

Accordingly, the legislative power is held by the council, which is empowered to pass bye-laws. They also have the power to make executive decisions, in particular those that involve a great amount of public money. The relationship between the institutional design of local government and democratic accountability has been pointed out by some researchers Baena del Alcazar, ; Aliende, ; Hambleton and Sweeting, This structure does not feature a complete separation of roles between the executive and the council.

The latest reforms have tried to amend this situation by shifting power from the council to the mayor and the committee. At some point, it was thought that more executive powers should be transferred to the mayor and the committee, and this was done at the expense of the council, with the purpose of making it easier for local authorities to make decisions in a quicker and more effective way, according to local needs and interests. This resulted in a redistribution of power between both institutions, which increased the power of the mayor and the committee, even though they are not elected on the basis of a direct election of the mayor by the electorate.

To compensate for the powers that have been transferred to the executive branch, and also to prevent councillors from feeling excluded from the decision-making process, the council has another role: some of the councillors sit on an overview and scrutiny committee, on which there must be at least one councillor running executive arrangements Parejo Alfonso, Their membership cannot include executive members of the council, and they must be politically balanced. This is the reason the Local Government Act has been amended several times, in particular in , in an attempt to redistribute the power between the mayor and the committee, and the council.

In particular, the local government system that has been most affected by this reform is that of the larger cities. The reform implied transferring greater power to the mayor and the committee, as the executive branch of the local government, so that they should propose the policy framework and implement policies within the subsequent agreed framework. This redistribution of power gives the executive branch of the local government more power to bypass override an uncooperative local council.

Under these reforms, the role of the full council has been reasserted, particularly with regard to passing key strategies, by setting the policy framework the array of annual performance plans and strategies relating to such issues as community safety, libraries, and sports , passing the budget, and appointing key officers. Furthermore, a key duty of local councillors is that of overview and scrutiny. The backbench councillors or council are in charge of passing secondary legislation bye-laws and controlling the executive.

However, the separation of power is not complete. The reform means shifting power from the local council to the mayors, and, as a result, it has changed the decision-making process and the way in which decisions are taken and for whom.

The decision-making power of the executive has been increased at the expense of the council. However, to compensate for this, the role of the council has been redefined giving it increased control over the executive. The reforms, which shift power from the council to the mayor and the committee, mean a change in the roles of the council and of the mayor. In any case, this shift or move to a new distribution of power does not represent a change in the power available to the local authority.

There has been a redistribution of power, so that the mayor and the committee take over most of the executive power of the council. Political parties have an important influence on local government in Spain. This influence is arguably greater than it should be in local governments, as they have a role, not only in the electoral process, but also once the elections have been held, as will be explained later Hambleton and Sweeting, All councillors are elected as members of political parties.

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Elected mayors. Page Content. Details of signatories needed on petitions to hold a referendum kb pdf How often will elections take place for an elected Mayor? And in the new term City Hall will gain additional powers over land and finance to tackle the capital's acute shortage of homes a challenge both Mayors have previously been hampered in their efforts to address by a legally limited remit.

The Mayoral system used in London is far from perfect, the London Assembly desperately needs more power to check the power of the Mayor and hold them to account while the Mayor is constrained in delivering for London by having no formal role in education and health care.

But London and Londoners are inarguably better off for having a tier of Government which answers solely to them. Below the line there are a couple of mentions of Doncaster, which is holding a referendum tomorrow on whether to scrap the elected mayor post its had since I've been reading up on the situation there to see whether it shines any light on the pitfalls of the mayoral system — and have found some interesting insights into the politics too.

Doncaster introduced elected mayors in on the back of a wave of financial scandals at the council. In the current Doncaster mayor Peter Davies, an English Democrat , was elected promising to cut his own wage by more than half and scrap the perks of office. This recent piece by Brian Wheeler for the BBC website explains how the Labour dominated council never really accepted the post of mayor, insisting on setting its own budgets and polcities - even when its own candidate was in the post. Labour is now leading the campaign to scrap the post.

Davies has meanwhile faced criticisms fro the Audit Commission which described him as "not averse to provocative and inflammatory statements" adding that these "serve to create division when compromise and conciliation are required".

Wheeler reports:. Sandra Holland, the council's Labour group leader who lost to Mr Davies in , is heading the campaign to get rid of the mayor.

She describes his victory as a "fluke" and a "protest vote about things that were happening nationally at the time". But she rejects his claim that 3 May's referendum, which was triggered by a vote in council, is an example of "sour grapes" and "bad sportsmanship".

She says the mayor has "failed to consolidate his position" in Doncaster and the Labour Party, with 44 councillors to the English Democrats' none, is the true voice of the town's people. The position of mayor, she argues, concentrates too much power in one person's hands and is profoundly undemocratic.

It seems from that report that the local politics of mayors can be quite intractable. Meanwhile, The Times reports today that locally Labour is leading the campaigns against elected mayors. In Nottingham Labour has been warning in its campaign literature that a vote for a mayoral system could be a way-in for the BNP.

Jon Collins, the leader of Nottingham City Council, defended the leaflet. In Leeds, local party whips made clear that everyone should defend the status quo. Labour councillors wishing to back a mayor were told that they could lose out on promotion, Stuart Bruce, a former Leeds Labour councillor claimed. From these reports it does seem that in may areas Labour is opposing the Tory led plans for directly elected mayors.

One reason might be that mayors are a challenge to Labour's power base in councils. Of the cities voting tomorrow, every single council is controlled by Labour.

Simon Parker from the New Local Government Network has just got in touch pointing me towards this fascinating piece by Graham Chapman , the Labour deputy leader of Nottingham City Council, setting out his opposition.

He talks about the costs, and concerns about the concentration of power in one individual concluding:. In short, the elected mayor arrangement risks destabilising systems, undermining democracy and costing substantially, not only in direct expenditure but in conflict, time wasted, energy spent on introspection and self-aggrandisement mostly male , as opposed to achievement. Where the arrangement has avoided problems there is no evidence that elected mayors have added great value to their area.

Some have been reasonable, even good, but there is no dramatic improvement which may not otherwise have happened had they been leaders. Elected mayors have the potential to reinvigorate local democracy making it more visible and more accountable. They could also disperse power from Westminster and make the political landscape more diverse. The London mayoralty has, for example, been successful in campaigning for better investment in transport. But there is also a danger in concentrating power into the hands of an individual who may make populist but problematic promises.

There is the potential for a clash between the mayor and local council that will create a power struggle, as has been the case in Doncaster which will now vote on whether to scrap the mayoralty. Whether you think that is a good thing or not depends on the faith you place in councils at the moment.

For some anything that challenges their power and revives local politics will be deemed a good thing; for others it is a costly disruption.

A flaw in the referendums being held tomorrow is that nobody really knows what they will be voting for. The government says they will negotiate the transfer of powers to mayors, and some candidates have set out what they would lobby for, but the final result is not currently known.

Below the line and on Twitter several people have questioned whether the campaigns have been high profile enough. I'm from Nottingham and we're voting on this tomorrow. What strikes me is how little interest there's been in it. The council have illegally mounted a "No" campaign and it probably did more to make people aware that there was actually going to be a vote than anything else.

Others asked whether the city council areas that are proposed for the mayor are big enough to make it worthwhile.