Directly elected mayors in England
The system of elected mayors had been considered by the Major ministry, and the former Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine had been a proponent of it.
[1] The 1997 Labour manifesto included a commitment to reform local government in London by introducing an elected mayor.
The 2000 act ended the previous committee-based system, where functions were exercised by committees of the council (although this was reinstated in 2012).
Eleven mayors were established during 2002, in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts, unitary authorities and London boroughs.
The 2007 legislation required all local authorities to review their executive arrangements again and consider the case for an elected mayor.
The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 introduced the combined authority structure.
Other subsequent Acts (see below) inserted sections into LDEDCA which created new posts of mayor for combined authorities.
In February 2006 the Institute for Public Policy Research published a report calling for elected mayors in Birmingham and Manchester, which was positively received by the government, but not by the two city councils concerned.
Later Prime Minister David Cameron expressed support for the system, saying that directly elected mayors are "accountable" and can "galvanise action".
[10] On 2 May 2012 the Bow Group, a Conservative think tank, published a short article supporting directly elected mayors for large English cities.
[11] The Localism Act 2011 permitted central government to trigger referendums for elected mayors,[12] and this was intended to happen in the largest cities during 2012.
[13] In September 2011 citizens of Salford collected the required number of signatures to force a referendum, which was successful.
[14] Using the powers in the Localism Act 2011, referendums were held on 3 May 2012 in ten English cities to decide whether or not to switch to a system that included a directly elected mayor.
Devolution deals had been agreed in principle with Norfolk and Suffolk by the Conservative government which involve directly-elected leaders of each county's council.
[22][23] There have been campaigns in four of the local authorities with directly elected mayors to hold referendums to abolish the posts.
The electorate of Stoke-on-Trent voted to remove the post of elected mayor on 23 October 2008, to be replaced with a system of council leader and cabinet.
[30] Liverpool City Council chose to abolish the post of elected mayor and revert to a leader and cabinet model from May 2023 following a 2022 consultation on its future governance.
[32] Simon Jenkins wrote in The Guardian calling metro mayors a "farce of local democracy".
The Scottish Conservatives support elected mayors where there is found to be "local demand in our major towns and cities".
A local-authority elected mayor has powers similar to those of the executive committee in a Leader and Cabinet model local authority.
This is again based on secondary legislation, in this case the Local Government (Standing Orders) (England) Regulations 2001.
Two local authority mayors, those for Leicester and Liverpool, were created by city council resolution without holding a referendum.
