‘Council leader’ to replace mayor after local elections next year

The mayor of Bristol will be replaced by a ‘council leader’ after the local elections in May next year.

The council leader will carry out many of the same roles as the current directly elected mayor, but with fewer decision-making powers.

In May last year Bristol voted in a referendum to scrap the role of a directly elected mayor, a decade after the role was first introduced. Bristol City Council will instead move to a committee-run model of governance, but many similarities with the mayoral model will remain.

As well as a council leader, current cabinet members will be replaced by eight committee chairs who are responsible for various parts of the council’s work, such as health or transport.

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Read more: How will Bristol’s new committee system work?

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The council leader will be chosen by a majority of councillors, directly after the elections next year. The councillor chosen will most likely be the head of whichever political group wins the most seats.

They will represent the council politically, for example with the government and the media, as well as guiding the direction of the council’s overall strategy.

A report to the working group said: “It’s anticipated that this position will provide political and strategic leadership within the council and with external partners and organisations at the local, national and international level, for example with One City boards, the Local Government Association and Core Cities.”

As well as a council leader, there will be a lord mayor who acts as the ceremonial figurehead of Bristol, usually elected by councillors every year.

The role, one of “significant historical importance”, also chairs full council meetings, and attends events on behalf of the council, such as citizenship ceremonies. A deputy lord mayor is also chosen each year.

Eight policy committees will be created to cover each part of the council’s work – photo: Betty Woolerton

Eight policy committees will be created to cover each part of the council’s work. It’s expected that around nine councillors will sit on each of these committees, with balanced representation of all political parties. The eight chairs of policy committees will likely play a similar role to the current cabinet members.

Committee chairs will provide “political direction to officers”, act as a spokesman in the media for issues in the committee’s remit, liaise with key partners, and communicate council policy to residents, according to the report to the working group. They will also be responsible for chairing committee meetings, which will design and scrutinise new policies.

While it’s unclear how often the policy committees will meet in public, it’s expected that every week or fortnight all the chairs and the council leader will meet in private with senior officers. This would not be open for members of the public or press to attend.

During the working group meeting, Liberal Democrat councillor Tim Kent said: “I’ll say something very unpopular. There’ll be an informal meeting convened by the leader, with senior officers and chairs of the committees. If we don’t have that operating, the system will just grind down.

“All public decisions have to be made in public. But we all know there are 1,000 other decisions and steers and guides. And we have to have that conversation between senior officers and committee chairs.

“That’s something that I would have thought probably happens at least fortnightly, possibly weekly.

“That doesn’t mean that we’re going back to a mayoral model. But the reality is you cannot do all the business in committee meetings.

“There are 1,000 other discussions that happen. That’s where you deal with ‘your committee is £2 million overspent, what are we going to do about this’, because that’s going to happen quite a bit.”

Alex Seabrook is a local democracy reporter for Bristol

Main photo: Martin Booth

Read more:

• Mayor or committee: What’s the referendum about?
• ‘The ‘strong’ mayoral system has resulted in dangerously weak, politically-driven decision making’
• ‘Truly representative ‘people power’ under a committee system is a myth’
• Rees reacts to the mayoral referendum

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