‘Why I want to scrap mayoral model and bring back democracy’

I am standing on a platform to abolish the position of directly elected mayor of Bristol City Council. This article seeks to lay out why we think we need to do that, and how we propose to go about it.

When the referendum on directly elected mayors was held in 2012, Bristol was the only one of George Osborne’s ten Core Cities to choose a mayoral system. At a stroke this stymied one of the main reasons for having a high-profile executive city mayor; ten mayors of ten core cities would form a network of civic leaders to rebalance power away from Westminster. Without the other nine, the plan has fallen flat.

Cue George Osborne’s next idea for regional devolution: metro mayors, which we’ve had since 2017. There are eight of these mayors, who instead of covering a city, cover a city region made of up several local authorities acting in concert.

Some of these mayors are higher profile than others, the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, are household names, as is the greater London mayor, Sadiq Khan.

The point is to put our region on a par with the likes of London and Manchester to fight for investment. Our sitting West of England Combined Authority (WECA) mayor has hardly made an impact, but the potential is there to elect someone who can; they have substantial power and should be highly visible.

Responsibilities of the WECA mayor are strategic management of the regional economy through land use allocation, integrated transport across the region, and adult skills provision.

The metro mayoral elections for the West of England were first held in 2017 – photo courtesy of Bristol City Council

Back to the Bristol mayoralty. If we have a regional metro mayor fighting our corner against the government, and the Sadiq Khans and the Andys, what is the job of the Bristol mayor? Well, to run the boring day to day stuff that we need inside the city of Bristol: the refuse collections, the planning permissions, leisure facilities, schools, social services, public health and addiction services. It is not to gallivant around the world and attract inward investment. What we need is a council that does the basics well and spends our council tax responsibly.

There are three models of council leadership:

The committee system, whereby all councillors sit on committees overseeing each area of council work, and the cabinet (the executive) is made up of the leaders of each committee.

There is also a leader and cabinet model, which Bristol had until 2012. The council leader is chosen by the councillors.

With the mayoral system, the council leader is elected directly by the electorate, instead of by the councillors, but a directly elected mayor also has greater executive powers than a normal council leader.

A council leader does not have the power to overrule a majority council decision. However, a directly elected mayor can completely ignore the council; this is what happened over the Bristol Arena. The earmarked Temple Island site was the favoured location for the arena amongst councillors, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of building the arena there instead of moving it to the Brabazon hangar. The council decision was overridden by the will of one man.

This looks a lot less like democracy and more like autocracy. There has also been a lack of transparency and accountability. It all smacks of ego, and that’s not what we want in a council leader. We need a team leader, not an autocrat.

The mayor made the decision not to proceed with plans for an arena near Temple Meads – photo by Ellie Pipe

How would the Liberal Democrats go about changing this?

The only method to remove a mayoral position instigated by a referendum is to remove by referendum. There are two ways to call a referendum: either the people of Bristol can call one by petition, or the council can call one. Either way, the earliest date this can be done is May 2022.

All the LibDem candidates standing in the May 2021 Bristol council elections are committed to voting for a referendum to abolish the mayor.

What do we propose to replace the mayor with?

The choice is between the committee system or leader and cabinet model. You could have a hybrid of both where the cabinet is made up of the chairs of each committee, as voted for by each committee, and the leader is either automatic, being the leader of the biggest party, or is elected by councillors.

The council leader used to be selected annually, which causes problems with continuity, but there is no reason why we couldn’t change this and install the leader for four years. We have a minimum of one year from the election to decide on what model to put against the mayoral model on the referendum paper.

The most democratic way of choosing the model would be to run a democracy commission to increase public engagement and find out what people want. Only 25 per cent of the population voted in the 2012 referendum, we need to know what the rest of you think.

In addition, The Lib Dems propose to further devolve power by establishing local neighbourhood councils, like the town or parish councils that are common across the West of England.

How long would I be mayor for if elected?

Due to the delayed elections, the next council term will only be three years, and the mayor cannot stand down in that term without triggering a by-election. I would spend that time moving the council towards a more democratic model, ensure that voices of councillors are heard, and commit to never overruling a majority council decision.

Dr Caroline Gooch is running as the Lib Dem candidate in the Bristol mayoral elections 2021 – photo courtesy of Bristol Lib Dems

Caroline Gooch is the Lib Dem candidate for Bristol mayor

Main photo by Martin Booth

Read more: Fact-checking whether Bristol can scrap the role of directly elected mayor