An elected dictator in the Council House?

No to elected mayors – democratise the Council!

On May 3^rd voters will be asked

“How would you like Birmingham to be run?

“By a leader who is an elected councillor chosen by a vote of the other elected councillors. This is how the council is run now.

“Or by a mayor who is elected by voters. This would be a change from how the council is run now.”

If they vote yes to an elected mayor an election will be held probably in November 2012. At present there are three serious candidates, all Labour: Albert Bore, Sion Simon and Gisela Stuart.

There is a real danger that voters will vote for an elected mayor out of disillusion with how the Council has been run over the last few years by the Tory-LibDem coalition. Not just the cuts in services and jobs, but the widespread feeling that there is an absence of dynamic leadership in the city and that citizens have no influence over the politicians. The government, echoed by the three Labour candidates and backed by the Birmingham Post, are strongly arguing that an elected mayor is the solution. A single clear high-profile leadership for Birmingham and, for Labour supporters, the attraction that the winner will almost certainly be Labour.

The left needs to be clear that the aim of the government’s policy of elected Mayors is to strike a further devastating blow to what remains of local democracy. On those grounds, whoever is the likely winner of an election locally, the left should call for a no vote in the referendum.

No to an elected mayor, no to the status quo

The wording of the referendum presents a false choice – that the only way to get change is an elected mayor. But there is a third option: a radical democratisation of the present bureaucratic system, opening up decision-making in the city to participation by its citizens.

The fundamental problem in Birmingham, as elsewhere, is that people – and especially young people and ethnic minorities – are completely alienated from local politics. They simply don’t believe that they can make any difference. The Power Inquiry’s report into the UK’s democratic health found that citizens are rarely asked to get involved, and rarely listened to when they do. Yet people want a real say in the conditions that affect their lives, and are willing to get involved if they feel it can achieve something important, as the local campaigns and strikes against the cuts show.

So the challenge for local government in Birmingham is: can it be reinvented to embrace the ideas, desires and energies of the people of the city? An elected mayor will have the exact opposite effect, replacing the existing undemocratic system with an even less democratic one – an elected dictator in the Council House.

The Localism Act gives the elected Mayor dictatorial powers. The Mayor:

• is in office for four years and cannot be unseated by a vote of council members.
• appoints the Cabinet.
• holds all the reins of council power, in charge of, among other things, economic development, with the power to make policy.
• cannot be overruled by the Council unless at least two-thirds of councillors vote against.
• sets the budget, again only subject to Council veto by a two-thirds majority

Under this elected Mayor system the role of councillors would be reduced to ‘scrutiny’, coupled with constituents’ casework. Under the present system scrutiny committees are largely toothless, placing few constraints on the executive. Under an elected Mayor they would be even more powerless, and largely unable, even if they wished, to prevent further cuts in Council services.

Even more powers in future

As things stand, a mayor would simply take over the powers of the council leader and cabinet. But amendments to the Localism Bill give the Local Government Secretary the power to transfer responsibility for almost any public service to local authorities, as long as doing so would “promote economic development or wealth creation” or “increase local accountability in relation to the function”. It potentially allows local authorities to take over any function which is “currently the responsibility of government or other public authority, which are carried out in relation to the people who live, work, or carry on activities in the authority’s area” (B Post 3 November 2011). The mayor could take control of local rail and bus service franchises, job centres and further education (B Post 8 December 2011).

These powers can be transferred to any local authority whether it has a mayor or not, but clearly the government wants to use them as carrots for a ‘yes’ vote. We welcome increased powers to local government, but not if they are in the hands of one largely unaccountable person.

Why business likes elected mayors

Companies which contract for local government services have made no secret of their support for the Mayoral system. Capita, perhaps the biggest, stated in evidence to a House of Lords committee in 2010 that they like the idea of “a strong leader who can personally commit the council making it easier for firms like theirs to develop partnerships”. In other words, dealing with a single business-oriented politician who can act without reference to anyone else makes it much more convenient for firms like Capita to win contracts for local government services.

The pressure on elected Mayors is to adopt the role of civic ambassador. This entails abandoning any notion of conflicting class interests at the heart of the city and promoting a sanitised and business-oriented public relations image of the city based on an imaginary consensus. For Simon:

“One of the key jobs of an elected Mayor is to speak for the city. To be the voice of the citizen. To lead the discussion on who we are, what we stand for, what makes us special. And then to lead the process of articulating and distilling that sense, and then taking the message out to the rest of the country and the rest of the world.” (B Post 1 April 2011)

Leave the big decisions to the mayor!

Albert Bore is promoting a deeply false and undemocratic division of responsibilities. In his view the mayor would exercise central strategic leadership – in other words take all the big decisions – leaving the councillors to ensure good local services in their areas. He claims this is democratic because the mayor would be accountable. But how? To the citizens of Birmingham every 4 years? To a council chamber where support from one-third of the members could block any challenge? And be wary of this word ‘accountability’. It means the mayor carries out policy and then is judged by the results. It doesn’t mean that citizens have the right to play a role in shaping policy in advance, as it is formulated. Of course councillors should ensure good local services, but they can only do even that if they have the power to take the big strategic decisions on which local services depend.

The prospect of an elected mayor is already threatening local democracy in other ways too. Gisela Stuart favours open primaries, people who don’t even support Labour, to select Labour’s candidate. A business executive, bidding for Birmingham’s local TV franchise, argued at a public debate on the mayor on November 24 at the Hiatt hotel that with an elected mayor we don’t need 120 councillors, a couple of dozen would do, preferably non-party.

Our alternative: democratise the Council!

Labour nationally and locally is arguing for a localism agenda, a shift from New Labour’s top-down micro-management to greater local community empowerment. We agree with the direction of policy. We want to see strong and active local bodies – parish councils or whatever they are called – with resources and powers so local people can have a real say.

But on its own sub-localism is not enough, because it leaves strategic power over the budget and key policies with the centre, the city council, largely immune from popular involvement. The crucial question is what new structures and processes can open up council decision-making to popular participation? How can local participation at the neighbourhood, ward and constituency levels fed into and shape decision-making at the centre? What new city-wide forums are needed to allow policy to be developed across the city?

For example, open up Scrutiny committees to popular input; introduce a participatory budget-making process, set up city-wide forums bringing together citizens and councillors on key issues such as education, transport, housing and jobs. There is no shortage of ideas, learning from experiences of participation around the world.

In our view ideas like this can fire the public imagination and win a ‘no’ vote to an elected mayor in the referendum if the opposition takes them up. We have to have a credible and imaginative vision of a democratic alternative, not just a ‘vote for the status quo’.

Yet the cross-party opposition campaign led by MPs Godsiff and Hemming and Tory councillor Hutchings has no such vision. In fact they don’t even have a campaign, as a visit to their website (ineptly named ‘saynotoapowerfreak’) will demonstrate – no arguments, no public activities, no functioning internal democracy (in spite of the promises). Their invisible ‘campaign’ itself mirrors the bankruptcy of their ideas and seriously risks handing over the referendum to the elected mayor camp.

For a labour movement-led campaign for a ‘no’ vote – and a democratic alternative

The left needs to urgently raise the issues around elected Mayors in the unions and the community. Time is short and the pro-elected mayor campaign is gathering momentum. We have the arguments, and we have an alternative to the ossified status quo. Now we need a campaign throughout the city for a ‘no’ vote in May.

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