Local leadership, local choice

Chapter 2 - Local governance: local choice

The Government will introduce legislation when Parliamentary time allows so that communities can have the leadership they want and need.
Councils are to ask their local people how they want to be governed.
People can decide in a referendum to have a directly elected mayor to lead their local community wherever:
5% or more of local electors ask for such a referendum; or
the council proposes one.
So communities which want a directly elected mayor will be led by one; elsewhere, councils are expected to move to other new ways of working which meet the needs of their communities today.

Asking local people

2.1 The Government will introduce legislation when Parliamentary time allows so that communities can have the leadership they want and need. Central to this is giving people a real say about how they want to be governed locally and about how those who take local decisions affecting the daily lives of all in the community are to be held to account. The starting point to modernise how a local community is to be governed is for that community to be directly engaged in debate and discussion about the options for change.

2.2 Every council is therefore to be required to consult its local community - local electors and other interested parties, including business, other public bodies, and the voluntary sector - about how that community is to be governed, and what new form of local governance will be best suited to give it the leadership it needs to prosper and to provide its people with a good quality of life.

2.3 Many councils are already working out ways to modernise the way they work. They are consulting their local communities about new and effective forms of local governance. The Government welcomes this.

2.4 The Local Government Association's publication - "Modernising political management arrangements: options within the existing legislative framework"¹¹ - describes many of the initiatives that can be pursued under existing legislation. The publication "New Forms of Political Executive: practical implications"¹² also sets out those factors which would need to be addressed in the design of new forms of local governance (i.e. new political management structures) expected to be made available under new legislation.

Figure 3 Lewisham London Borough Council¹³

The council has set about modernising the future governance of Lewisham by a process centred on directly engaging their community and seeking evidence from a wide range of sources.

Proposals for a radically new form of local governance were drawn up through:

an open and transparent select committee;
the results of public consultation which were at the centre of the evidence considered; and
questioning a wide range of witnesses, from academics to the Minister for Local Government.

The result of this evidence-based and consultative process is the proposal that Lewisham needs a directly elected mayor to provide clear and visible leadership in relation to partners and to the future mayor of London, and to be able to hold agencies to account on behalf of local people.

This is a proposal for which substantial community support was found; a representative survey found 57% in favour.

2.5 Not every council has begun to modernise the way it works. The Government expects these councils to take the opportunity given by this paper to begin the process of moving to new forms of local governance.

2.6 Councils which have already begun consulting their communities on forms of local governance have learned a great amount about how their community views them and how they would wish their relationship with their council to be. It has sometimes led to unexpected developments in policy or the way in which decisions are taken by councils.

2.7 A range of options for new forms of local governance needs to be presented to local people. The aim must be for the community to choose the form which best suits all its circumstances and needs, not for today's council simply to choose which is most convenient for it. A council presenting a single favoured option for consultation is unlikely to achieve this aim. Open, honest consultation is a vital element in the agenda for bringing government closer to the people.

2.8 Such open consultation is part of the more general move to greater public involvement in decision taking in modern local government today. Each council will need to determine for itself which methods of consultation are appropriate for which issues and in their local circumstances. There are many sources of advice on this, but councils may particularly wish to refer to "Modern Local Government: Guidance on Enhancing Public Participation"¹⁴.

Local people to decide

2.9 Asking people how they want their community governed is not enough. It is right for local people themselves to take the decisions about new forms of local governance which involve such radical change as introducing new elections. The Government intends that such decisions are to be taken through binding local referendums. This will give local communities real influence and power over the way in which they will be led.

2.10 The legislation is to require that where a directly elected mayor is wanted, this must be put to the people in a local referendum. The results of such a referendum are to be binding on the council. So where people vote for a directly elected mayor, there will be one.

2.11 There would be statutory guidance on the detail to be included in the proposals put at a referendum and the timing of referendums. The guidance could also cover associated issues to do with the orderly implementation of the new form of local governance, including the first election of the mayor. There would be a power for the Secretary of State to prescribe in regulations the rules for the conduct of any referendum, and the question to be asked in certain circumstances (see paragraph 2.13 below). In determining those rules, the Government will give careful consideration to the relevant recommendations made by the Neill Committee in their report on the funding of political parties,¹⁵ as well as to the particular different circumstances of local referendums.

2.12 Not only would a council, after consultation, be able to propose a directly elected mayor, but the legislation is also to open the way for local people to take the initiative. People are to be able to petition their council for a referendum on whether a new form of local governance involving a directly elected mayor should be adopted. If 5% or more of voters so petition, the council would be under a duty to draw up a formal detailed proposal on that basis, and to hold a referendum on this within a defined period. The Government has concluded that a threshold higher than 5% would risk ruling out genuine local demand for a directly elected mayor being tested. It believes that a 5% threshold would avoid this risk, whilst preventing any unnecessary or frivolous triggering of a referendum.

2.13 To ensure fair conduct of a referendum in such circumstances, the Government would be able to say:

what detailed proposal for a new form of local governance a council must draw up following receipt of a petition;
how the proposal must reflect any intentions or preferences of the petitioners;
what form the wording of the proposition put in the referendum should take;
when the referendum should be held; and
how other matters should be ordered to ensure fair conduct of the referendum.

Rules are also to prescribe how petitions are to be treated in cases where a council is already in the process of itself developing a proposal for a directly elected mayor.

2.14 The process of a local community adopting a directly elected mayor might be as set out in the box below.

Figure 4 Choosing a directly elected mayor

2.15 The referendum is binding in both ways. If the proposal is not supported it cannot be implemented. It would remain open to the council, after further consultation, to move to another new way of working which does not involve a directly elected mayor (see paragraph 3.4 below). A further referendum for a directly elected mayor, either at the council's behest or following a petition, would be possible under the legislation after five years. This limitation is to avoid the risk of a community continuously over a number of years focusing primarily on how it should be governed, rather than on what those who are leading it should be doing.

2.16 Even where people do not want a directly elected mayor, the Government expects councils to adopt other new ways of working which meet the needs of their communities today more effectively than their traditional ways of working. It is these traditional ways which, in the Government's view, seriously weaken a council's ability to give effective leadership for its community and be accountable to its local people.

2.17 Accordingly, the Government believes it is right for a council to continue with its traditional ways of working only in those circumstances where local people have been given and rejected in a referendum a clear choice for their community to have a new form of local governance. Where, therefore, a council has neither put such a referendum to its local people, nor moved to some other new form of local governance (e.g. having a cabinet with a leader - see chapter 3), the legislation is to enable the Secretary of State to require that council to hold a referendum within a specified period on a question determined by the Secretary of State.

2.18 With such a referendum the Secretary of State is to be able to require the council to put before its people either its own detailed proposal for a new form of governance, or such other proposal defined by the Secretary of State. Again, the voice of local people in the referendum would be binding on the council. If they voted for the proposal, the council would have a duty to implement it within a given period. The box below shows how these arrangements might work.

Figure 5 Requiring a referendum on local governance

2.19 The result of these arrangements would be that a council will need to put in place a form of local governance which commands support from its citizens. If voters want an elected mayor there will have to be one. Only if local people failed to support a new form of local governance in a referendum could a council retain its traditional ways of working. ¹¹Modernising political management arrangements: options within the existing legislative framework, Local Government Association, 1998.

¹² New forms of political executive: Practical implications, Local Government Association and Local Government Management Board, 1998.

¹³Governing Lewisham: select committee report on political management 1999, London Borough of Lewisham, 1999.

¹⁴Modern Local Government: Guidance on Enhancing Public Participation, DETR, 1998.

¹⁵Standards in Public Life: The Funding of Political Parties in the United Kingdom, Cm 4057, TSO 1978