Howard Elcock

The Elected Mayor and Local Leadership

This article examines the new leadership role of the English elected mayor. The authors suggest that the management and governance of the local authority is subject to significant change within the mayoral system, and that elected mayors represent a form of strong political management which is essentially new within English local government. The authors discuss the prospects for the future of the executive mayor, and suggest potential areas for further research, including succession planning in mayoral authorities, the nature of the first mayoral re-election campaigns outside London, and the possible growth of this form of local leadership.

Leadership and management in UK local government: a role for elected mayors?

The paper assesses the impact of the elected executive mayor on leadership and management in UK local government. After exploring the new executive arrangements introduced by the Local Government Act 2000, the three themes of governing, governance and allegiance within mayoral councils are discussed in detail. Principally using the results of interviews with a group of the mayors first elected in 2002, the paper suggests that the directly elected mayor has an enhanced individual role in the leadership of the local council, that elected mayors increasingly coordinate the efforts of external partners in the wider governance of the area, that new and potentially problematic relationships are developed with elected councillors and with senior managers, and that there is a changed local political context in which the mayor must now operate. The elected mayor is seen as both leader and manager. It is suggested that mayors have sought a new direct relationship with the public, and that this has implications for the continued role of other local representatives. Finally, the prospects for extending the mayoral experiment under the ‘modernization’ framework of the government re-elected in May 2005 are examined. Although the mayoral initiative has been adopted in only a small number of councils, it is concluded that leadership and management of the local authority are significantly changed within those areas.

Local government and the problem of English governance

Abstract The paper is concerned with the problematic nature of English governance. The discussion begins with reference to the reluctance to engage in debates about English national governance. It then poses a series of questions about the balance to be drawn between localism and regionalism and the fragmentation of local governance in England (in contrast to the rest of the UK), suggesting that local government might provide a solution to the problem through the building of effective patterns of governance from the bottom up. This is contrasted with the various proposed formal and institutional ‘solutions’ to English governance, which are bound to fail. The discussion goes on to consider the problem of the English regions and concludes that the political conditions do not exist for the English regions to be the primary sites for the building of new English governance. After a review of ways in which governance can be built, attention reverts to the local level where it is suggested that the current reorganisation of English local government suggests ways in which the foundations of English governance can be developed locally.

Council Leaders in the ‘New Britain’: Looking Back and Looking Forward

This is an interesting time to review the attitudes and expectations of some leading figures in local government as the old age of despair is drawing to an end and a new dawn seems to be brightening the horizon. This article reports the view of half a dozen local government leaders. Early indications are that the Labour Government is serious about restoring at least some of local government’s lost powers and functions. These interviews suggest that Ministers will find a ready and eager response when they do so, for example the enthusiasm with which the best value scheme has been greeted. In other areas, including tax capping and the introduction of regional government, the future is less certain but the more radical proposals being canvassed are likely to command support from senior councillors if Ministers have the nerve to proceed with them.

Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?

Abstract The directly elected executive mayor was introduced to England a decade ago. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience, the elected mayor appealed to both New Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. There was a shared view that governance of local areas was failing and that elected mayors were the answer. The first local referendums were held in 2001. Most have continued to reject the idea of the elected mayor. During 2012, the coalition government initiated 10 further mayoral referendums in England’s largest cities but only one, Bristol, opted for an elected mayor. Overall, there is no evidence of widespread public support, yet the prospect of more mayors – with enhanced powers – remains firmly on the policy agenda. Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors’ analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England. Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors’ analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England.

The reorganization addiction in local government: unitary councils for England

Structural reorganization of local government is an addictive habit to which British government ministers and civil servants are peculiarly prone. In the latest instance, several unitary authorities were created where two-tier systems existed previously. Interviews and documentary research carried out before and after the reorganization demonstrate that many of the supposed benefits of structural change have not materialized, and some local authorities are still recovering from the resulting disruption.

The Public Interest and Public Administration

Ever since ancient Greece, philosophers have assumed the existence of a public interest that is more than the sum of the interests of the individuals that make up a polity. However, the utilitarians and more recently the theorists of the ‘New Right’ have argued that the public interest consists simply of individual interests summed together, with the result that the related notion that public servants have a special duty to protect and promote the collective public interest has been subjected to sustained attack. However, the collective public interest remains in the form of four values that public servants are required to promote: accountability, legality, integrity and responsiveness. In consequence, public sector management is essentially different from business management and can only be subsumed within the latter to a limited extent when considering the education pf public servants.

Out of the Loop? Councillors and the New Political Management

As part of the local government modernisation agenda, and under the specific terms of the Local Government Act 2000, local authorities have been required to adopt one of the new models designed to strengthen their core executive: principally, the leader and cabinet, the elected mayor and cabinet, or the elected mayor and council manager. Although the new political management structures are now in place, little is yet known about how they have affected the lives and work of councillors. This paper presents the initial results from a study of elected members in four local authorities in the North of England. Based on a survey and interviews, the research explores the impact of the new arrangements, and other aspects of modernisation, upon the role of the councillor.

A comparison of local management of regeneration in England and Greece

Purpose – Explores comparisons between the English and Greek local government systems, in the hope of offering some fresh insights into the regeneration and management of local areas.Design/methodology/approach – Discusses the issue of local political leadership at a time when changes in local political management arrangements are taking place in many European countries.Findings – The English and Greek experiments with developing local self‐government provide some reassurance and some causes for concern but, above all, they demonstrate that in, unitary states, Ministers and Civil Servants at the centre find withdrawing from interference in local affairs a very hard exercise in self‐denial.Originality/value – Illustrates the problems facing two centralised countries struggling with varying but limited success to cope with various public management issues raised by local devolution and decentralisation.

The fallacies of management

a reaction against &dquo;bureaucratic paternalism&dquo; (Hoggett and Hambleton, 1987) against the provision of services by large, insensitive organisations whose decisions and activities appeared to be dominated by the interests of those responsible for providing public services. These dominant producer interests included powerful professions who acted in accordance with their professional orthodoxies or ideologies, rather than paying attention to what citizens actually needed or desired. (Gower Davies, 1972; Illich et al., 1977; Stewart, 1983) In consequence, two developments have emerged that must cause students of public administration serious concern. The first is an assumption that private sector management is inherently superior to public service management because its methods and practitioners have been refined in the heat of market competition. From this premise has followed an assumption that there is a generic form of management whose tenets can be applied in all management contexts: that management is management, regardless of the nature of the organisation in which it is practised. (Perry and Kraemer, 1983, see also Gunn, 1988) In the context of this generic management comes the assumption that while private sector managers have a great deal to teach a bureaucratic and inefficient