11 July 2008
The government talks long and loud about empowering local communities. So why is it so determined to impose directly elected mayors on councils and citizens that plainly don't want them?
Directly elected mayors are back on the political agenda, with think-tanks, the government and even the opposition calling for more of them. Yet the evidence is clear: generally the public and local authorities do not want this method of local leadership.
If they did, they could have it under existing powers. If local people or the council want an elected mayor, they can call for a referendum. Just 5% of the electorate need to sign a petition for the referendum to be held. This is community empowerment – local people can have a mayor if they wish, but cannot have one imposed on them.
The government, however, is considering imposing referendums even when there have been no petitions. It is also considering giving additional funds and powers to authorities that adopt the model, presumably without a referendum. Such an approach is wrong in principle and is best described as bribery to get what the government wants.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Public Policy Research, an advocate of community empowerment, goes even further, arguing that directly elected mayors should be imposed not merely on local authorities but also on their citizens.
Why then is Communities and Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears, another champion of community empowerment, retreating from that very issue in this case? There is only one answer: the mayoral issue has not generally come up with the answer the government wants. Of the 35 referendums held so far, all but 12 have rejected the proposal, including the one imposed on the London Borough of Southwark. It is hardly surprising that the latter also had the lowest turnout.
In Birmingham, the leading evening newspaper printed petition forms in its pages over a prolonged period, but the signatories still fell far short of the required 5%. This week's white paper, Communities in control: real people, real power, proposes reducing the 5% test to 4%, 3% or 2%, which shows how desperate the government is to make local authorities adopt directly elected mayors. In other countries, the trigger for referendums is much higher.
The main argument against elected mayors is the concentration of power in a single person. Those advocating this model assume that there must be individual leadership rather than collective or team leadership. But in central government there is wide recognition of the dangers of over-dominant executives and presidential-style government – it is better to have the checks and balances of collegiate leadership.
Collective leadership can explore policy from different perspectives, including possible impacts in a variety of contexts, pitfalls ahead and the consequences for different people and groups. Adapting a phrase by Young Foundation director Geoff Mulgan: 'All of us are smarter than any one of us.'
Another major objection is the lack of a power to eject bad mayors during their four-year term. Many states in the US and Germany have the power to 'recall' their mayors and force a new election, following either a petition from the people or a vote of no-confidence by the council. Advocates of community empowerment should press for similar powers for British councils and citizens. But there is no sign that the government is considering this.
The call to impose these mayors everywhere has been stimulated by the recent election campaign in London, which generated much publicity. The 45% turnout in the capital is said to have clinched the argument in favour of directly elected mayors, even though it is only a little above the 44.2% turnout in the 1981 elections for the Greater London Council.
The proper comparison is not with a Greater London Authority drenched by national publicity but with the 12 local authorities with elected mayors. The national media have paid little attention to them. Their turnout has on average been no greater and no less than in other equivalent local authorities. The Electoral Reform Society in 2007 reported that mayoral elections 'did not raise turnout much from that attained in normal local elections, and when an entirely separate election was held, turnout was abysmal'.
Indeed, turnout for mayoral elections is no bigger than in leader/Cabinet authorities. The higher turnout in London is not because of the directly elected mayor but because people knew important issues were at stake, the contest was close run, media attention was massive and there was intense party campaigning. Had there been similar media attention and party activity outside London, turnout there would have been higher than 35%.
The national press, based in London, focuses on London. Even if all the major English cities were to adopt mayors, it is unlikely that the media would pay much attention to particular authorities. Indeed, the more authorities that adopted the system, the less attention each would receive.
There are other reasons why it would be misleading to draw lessons from London for the rest of the country. The GLA is not a good model. Its scale and functions differ from elsewhere. The powers of the Assembly are even more limited than those of councils in the rest of England and it has exercised only weak scrutiny of its mayor. Members can block the mayor's budget but need a two-thirds majority – unlikely in the present Assembly, where the mayor's party has almost half the votes.
Another argument used to justify the directly elected model is that it gives prominence to the holders of the office, whose names are likely to be known to more people than the names of council leaders. This observation is probably true, although not to the extent commonly implied. However, it is not necessarily a benefit. It is unlikely that a single person could represent the diverse complexities of large urban areas better than collective leadership.
In any case, a leader can be visible and well known. In the 1980s, we had Ken Livingstone as leader of the Greater London Council, David Blunkett in Sheffield and Shirley Porter in Westminster; in the 1930s, we had Herbert Morrison at the London County Council, and in the 1870s Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham. They were all local celebrities who personified their authorities and localities.
Look on the walls in many town halls today – at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries the same mayoral names crop up for a few years. They were leaders of their councils, like Chamberlain, but were not so well known because they never went into national politics. A leader can be a prominent political personality in a locality, just as a prime minister, although not directly elected, can be well-known nationally.
Advocates argue that the new mayors lead to better performance, yet fail to make comparisons with other authorities. The Comprehensive Performance Assessment scores of London, metropolitan and unitary authorities show that three of the nine authorities with elected mayors – 33% – are rated 'four star' compared with 38% of other authorities. So there is nothing special about authorities with directly elected mayors. They do not lead to better performing local government: if anything, the reverse appears true.
Some argue that the new breed of mayor will produce more innovation than leader/Cabinet systems, but provide no evidence. The way to encourage innovation by local authorities is for central government to stop imposing its solutions everywhere. It should treat councils as social laboratories through which society can learn about policy successes and failures. It should give local authorities freedom to experiment and the discretion to exercise their powers to promote the economic, social and environmental welfare of their localities – to 'place shape'.
Councils should also be less dependent on government grant and should draw the lion's share of their revenue from local taxation that bears on their local voters. This approach will stimulate more innovation than imposing mayors.
Some champions of directly elected mayors cite the experience of other European countries. They often wrongly include France and Spain. But these two countries have executive mayors, who are elected along with the other councillors on a list system and then chosen at the first council meeting after the election. In the Netherlands and Belgium, the mayor is chosen by central government and Scandinavia operates the leader/Cabinet model.
However, Italy and Germany do have directly elected mayors.
In the UK, the idea has been around since the early 1990s. The then environment secretary Michael Heseltine and the first controller of the Audit Commission, John Banham, wanted local authorities to be run like businesses and saw mayors as a route to this. Heseltine set up a committee to review the internal management of local authorities. Its 1993 report, Community leadership and representation: unlocking the potential, suggested the mayoral model among many but recommended leaving the choice to local authorities.
Two years later, the Commission for Local Democracy, chaired by Simon Jenkins, reported. It championed elected mayors but presented no evidence for this preference. It is said that when Jenkins was discussing the report with Tony Blair, the then Labour leader's eyes glazed over. But he became suddenly alert when Jenkins told him that such a mayor could help smash the power of Labour groups, which Blair viewed as bastions of the past. (However, mayors alone would not necessarily achieve this. Experience of the present set shows they can co-exist with and be part of the groups – and can even lead them.)
In today's climate, we would say there is a place for directly elected mayors – but that this model is one of several options open to local authorities. We do not oppose mayors per se, only their imposition, and we want councils to consider the arguments against them as well as for.
We favour more local choice on how authorities are run. Following constitutional commissions in the London boroughs of Hackney and Brent, Hackney chose an elected mayor and Brent the leader/Cabinet route. Hackney's choice arose because there was no chance of a stable single-party majority or coalition as it was riven by bitter inter- and intra-party fighting. It needed one person to cut through the intense factionalism and paralysis.
Brent rejected the mayoral model because its parties were more evenly balanced and not as internally divided, meaning that all could look forward to becoming a majority.
Some people might argue that there is more scope for mayors as more councils fall into 'no overall control', giving rise to unstable coalitions and minority governments. But coalitions in some places are stable and work well. Local authorities should be free to decide, since they know best their own distinctive circumstances.
We favour greater choice than at present, not merely in the range of options but within options. For the mayoral model, we favour the right of recall and of greater powers for the council. Such an approach would be a commitment to devolution to local authorities and empowerment to local communities.
To impose mayors or referendums where the public have not sought them would be a move away from devolution and community empowerment, and should be rejected by a secretary of state who believes in those aims. She should oppose financial and other inducements for local authorities and local citizens to adopt proposals they have previously turned down. She should support local decision-making.
Devolution to local government means that local councils and local citizens make their own choices, and those choices might not be the ones central government wants.
George Jones is emeritus professor of government at the London School of Economics and John Stewart is emeritus professor of local government at the University of Birmingham
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