In our research on the 21st Century Councillor, we’ve found that elected members are facing a barrage of challenges:
Perma-austerity has deepened with sustained underfunding of public services
Complexity of place has intensified, through combined authorities and integrated care systems, alongside local government reorganisation.
Communities are in distress, moving from the pandemic straight into the cost-of-living crisis
Incivility in public life has grown with rising issues of abuse and harassment for councillors in particular
The rising profile of equality, diversity and inclusion has drawn attention to how public services systematically fail some workers and citizens
Remote and hybrid working can enhance individual flexibility but can make it more difficult for councillors to build the relationships they need to function effectively.
From interviews with councillors, we heard about the strategies they use to cope with these challenges and to support their communities to thrive. They are keeping the system human on behalf of communities. They are zooming in and out, from the micro issues facing residents to the big strategic issues of place. They act as a lightning rod, absorbing hostility whilst keeping themselves grounded and safe. You can read more about the research findings here.
If you’re a councillor – or you work in a role supporting councillors – come and join us in Andover on 4 November to hear more about this research and chat to peers about how best to manage these challenges. You’ll also hear from the Local Government Chronicle about their new campaign to support councillors.
In a time of growing inequality, political disillusionment, and institutional strain, Birmingham is at a crossroads. The city’s bold initiative, Shaping Birmingham’s Future Together (SBFT), offers a timely and transformative opportunity: to reimagine how local government works with its communities.
A new report by Susana Higueras and Sonia Bussu lays out a compelling roadmap for how Birmingham City Council (BCC) can become a participatory council. Drawing on UK and international examples, as well as interviews with local stakeholders, the report argues that participatory governance must be more than a buzzword. It must be embedded into the everyday workings of the council, grounded in inclusive practices, and driven by a genuine commitment to share power.
Why Participation, Why Now?
Birmingham is one of the UK’s most diverse and youngest cities. This diversity is a strength, but also a challenge when it comes to ensuring that all voices are heard in policymaking. At the same time, the city faces deep structural inequalities, including the highest child poverty rates in the UK. Traditional top-down governance models are no longer fit for purpose. What’s needed is a shift from consultation to co-creation.
The SBFT partnership, launched in 2024, aims to tackle these challenges by fostering collaboration across public, private, and community sectors. But as the report makes clear, this vision will only succeed if participation is embedded, not treated as an add-on or a one-off event.
What Does Embedded Participation Look Like?
Embedded participation means making citizen engagement a routine part of how decisions are made, from setting priorities to evaluating outcomes. It requires:
Facilitative leadership that enables collaboration and power-sharing;
Boundary spanners, or individuals who bridge the gap between institutions and communities;
Strong partnerships with civil society, grassroots, and voluntary organisations;
Intersectional inclusion that centres the voices of those facing multiple, overlapping barriers to participation.
The report highlights that successful participatory governance is not about flashy new tools or one-off events. It’s about culture change, within the council, across sectors, and in how communities are engaged.
Lessons from Elsewhere
The report draws on global examples to show what’s possible, and what pitfalls to avoid.
Porto Alegre, in Brazil, was a trailblazer in participatory budgeting, enabling residents to directly allocate public funds, at one point transferring over $300 per person annually to community control. However, as political leadership shifted, the commitment to the process waned, and budget allocations steadily declined, leading to a loss of momentum.
Barcelona, Spain, embedded citizen participation through digital platforms like Decidim and cultivated strong ties with social movements. At its peak, over 40,000 citizens engaged in budgetary decisions. Yet, the experience underscores the vulnerability of transformative initiatives when overly reliant on charismatic leadership, making them susceptible to political cycles.
Camden, London, institutionalised citizens’ assemblies, integrating them into formal decision-making structures. Notably, all 17 citizen recommendations on climate policy were adopted. Still, challenges persist around ensuring inclusivity and maintaining consistent follow-through.
Reykjavik, Iceland, leveraged digital platforms to crowdsource citizen ideas and implement participatory budgeting. Initially successful in mobilising thousands of residents, the initiative faltered as political support diminished and the platforms remained peripheral to formal governance, highlighting the limitations of digital participation without institutional anchoring.
Ostbelgien, Belgium, established the world’s first permanent deliberative system linked to a legislative body. Its legally enshrined Citizens’ Council and Assemblies offer a promising model of democratic stability and accountability. However, the top-down design and limited community ownership reveal the critical need for co-creation and inclusive recruitment to prevent the reinforcement of existing inequalities.
These examples show that embedding participation requires sustained commitment, institutional support, and mechanisms for accountability.
Opportunities in Birmingham
Despite the challenges, Birmingham has a strong foundation to build on:
Crisis as catalyst: The COVID-19 response demonstrated that when urgency aligns with shared purpose, Birmingham can act quickly and inclusively.
Digital engagement: Platforms like Be Heard and virtual consultations have expanded access, especially during the pandemic.
But There Are Challenges Too
The report doesn’t shy away from the barriers:
Broken trust: Communities are tired of being consulted without seeing change.
Hierarchical leadership: A top-down culture limits innovation and responsiveness.
Structural silos: Departments often work in isolation, duplicating efforts and missing opportunities for collaboration and nurturing citizen participation.
Unfair funding mechanisms: Smaller community organisations feel sidelined and overburdened by bureaucracy.
These challenges are not unique to Birmingham, but they must be addressed head-on if SBFT is to succeed.
What Needs to Happen Next?
The report offers a clear set of policy recommendations.
Rebuild trust through transparent communication and visible follow-through.
Trust has been eroded by repeated consultations without tangible outcomes. BCC must commit to clear feedback loops, visibly acting on community input and explaining decisions transparently to rebuild credibility and legitimacy.
Embed participation in budgeting, service design, and scrutiny processes.
Participation should not be limited to one-off events; it must be embedded across governance functions. This can include participatory budgeting, citizen panels, and co-designed scrutiny mechanisms that give residents real influence over public decisions.
Foster facilitative leadership and cross-sector collaboration.
Leadership must shift from command-and-control to facilitation, enabling shared power and collaborative problem-solving. Cross-departmental working groups and partnerships with civil society can help break down silos and foster innovation.
Work better with communities, recognising them as co-creators, not just consultees.
Community organisations should be treated as equal partners, with fair funding, early involvement in policy development, and recognition of their expertise. This means moving from consultation to co-creation, where communities help shape solutions from the outset.
Design for intersectional inclusion, addressing overlapping barriers to participation.
Inclusive participation requires acknowledging and addressing systemic inequalities. Councils must create safe, accessible spaces and use diverse engagement methods, including arts-based approaches and multilingual formats, to ensure marginalised voices are centred and valued.
The SBFT partnership can be a catalyst of this change and become the space for shared governance and accountability.
A Call to Action
The SBFT initiative is more than a policy programme, it’s a democratic innovation. It’s a chance to reshape how power is shared in the city, how decisions are made, and how communities are valued. As one community leader put it: “We’re not asking to be asked. We’re asking to lead.”
If Birmingham can rise to this challenge, it won’t just be shaping its own future. It will be setting a national, and even global, example of what inclusive, embedded participatory governance can look like in the 21st century.
Dr Sonia Bussu is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham Department of Public Administration and Policy where she studies and teaches public policy. Her main research interests are participatory governance and democratic innovations, and creative and arts-based methods for research and public engagement.
Susana Higueras Carrillo is a Peruvian anthropologist. She is PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London and holds a master’s degree in Environmental Governance from the University of Oxford. She has worked at the University of Birmingham in the INSPIRE (Intersectional Space of Participation: Inclusive, Resilient, Embedded) project researching how to strengthen intersectional inclusion through arts-based methods such as legislative theatre. Her research interests lie in environmental and social justice and communicating research in creative and impactful ways.
Battered by fourteen years of austerity, is local government losing its once-proud standing and status? Probably. For a start, It’s no longer as ‘local’ as it should be. And it certainly isn’t ‘government’ as we once knew it.
These days, we sometimes tend to lump ‘democracy’ and ‘crisis’ together in a global context, forgetting that close to our doorsteps – in countless civic centres, town and county halls – there’s another crisis: restoring faith in local democracy, while sustaining councils literally facing insolvency.
At a hybrid event, organised by the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at Newcastle University, we asked a simple question at the start: Do we need a new, positive direction for once-powerful towns and communities where meaningful democracy has disappeared as local government has withdrawn?
We attracted a great range of speakers putting, broadly, two cases: first for a new local government structure in England based on economic geography embracing combined authorities for big city areas alongside large county-wide single purpose unitary authorities, underpinned by a more equitable funding formula; and, secondly, for varying degrees of town and parish governance, sustained by participatory democracy, including citizens assemblies, with powers – parks, libraries, leisure facilities for instance – devolved from existing larger authorities. Often, such an asset transfer is born out of necessity because larger councils can’t afford to keep them anyway and parishes/towns can raise money through a council tax precept while sometimes creating stand-alone community interest companies.
The case for a genuine new ‘localism’ appeared strong. That’s because, currently, a continuing process of abolishing councils to create larger units with few, if any, local roots has created a sense of powerlessness, a collective loss of identity with little or no attachment to people and places. Fifty years’ ago England had almost 1200 councils, from the smallest urban/rural district to the largest city. “We were run by our own,” recalled the writer, broadcaster and ultimate polymath Melvyn Bragg, in his 2022 memoir ‘Back in the Day’. Born in Wigton, Cumbria, his small town had a rural district council (which I knew well): “We could challenge the elected councillors who made the decisions” Bragg continued. “They were not a separate cadre…they were just people you had been to school with…(approach) on the street…to whom you could write a personal letter knowing it would be read, considered, answered.”
No longer. His council disappeared in 1974. Today, after several rounds of ‘reorganisation’ under the dubious label of efficiency – although there’s little concrete evidence of cost saving – that number has been reduced to 317, with little if any public debate. A forthcoming devolution White Paper is expected to advocate more reorganisation and even fewer councils in a country where local authorities already cover much larger areas than in mainland Europe.
Against this background, it’s probably no surprise that Carnegie UK, in its recent ‘Life in the UK’ index, reports that a lack of trust in politics and government is undermining collective well being. Three-quarters of people, says Carnegie, feel they can’t influence decisions. Surely reconnecting them begins locally. But how local?
If the government’s approach so far is a broad definition of ‘taking back control’, could an over-arching contradiction be emerging? Will the apparent obsession with more all-purpose councils, the prospect of an all-unitary England – similar to the structure in Scotland and Wales – make people feel even more distant from power, disaffected? Carnegie insists that restoring faith in democracy should be the Government’s ‘mission of missions’.
If that’s one challenge, there’s another, interlinked: the crisis of financing local government, with 7 councils theoretically insolvent and many more heading that way; legally, they can’t go bust and have been forced to borrow the equivalent of pay-day loans on a mega-scale to stay afloat, adding to a debt mountain. Now Conservative-run Hampshire has said issuing a section 114 notice – prelude to technical insolvency – is “almost inevitable”, with a sting of others close behind. And as Prof Andy Pike, and Jack Shaw have outlined in their recent excellent, but chilling paper (‘The geography of local authority financial distress in England’) 96% of English councils won’t balance their books by 2026-27.
Of course, alongside that unparalleled financial crisis in local government, we’re also facing an alarming democratic challenge nationally with the lowest turnout ever recorded in the recent general election; almost half the electorate didn’t vote! Surely, the place to renew trust in the democratic process begins at the grass roots, perhaps reviving some of the 10,000 town and parish councils, some of which want to take over functions from larger authorities (some are obliging out of necessity). Could this – call it double devolution – provide one small way forward?
I’m aware there’s a danger that events, like the latest one at CURDS addressing the crisis in local democracy, can produce a combination of hand-wringing and hot air. But, hopefully, we concluded with a practical, positive outcome. As Professor Jane Willis, geographer and champion of community empowerment – now in Cornwall- noted: “It’s not all gloom and doom – there is good news.” In her county, communities are taking back control, again out of necessity – a really positive story and a lesson for elsewhere? Willis advocates a new social contract under a layered system of local government to “re-franchise” people.
In the meantime, the chair of the event urged those present to make their views known to MPs, and the government, as the forthcoming devolution White Paper foreshadows a pre-legislative consultation process. As Professor Andy Pike, of CURDS, noted in summing up, one leading question needed answering above all: “What is local government for, and how to fund it?”
All we know so far is that the White Paper, according to the Treasury, will include …“working with councils to move to simpler structures that make sense of their local area with efficiency savings from council reorganisation helping to meet the needs of local people…”. Contradictory or otherwise – will more larger councils “make sense” of local areas? – we must surely intensify a campaign for a genuine new ‘localism’, embracing places, communities, towns and some cities now without any form of local government. That doesn’t necessarily mean sidelining the case for a new – and/or revised – local government structure in England tied to a ‘needs’-based funding formula. The current one favours the richer parts of the country and penalises the poorest with the lowest tax bases.
But the time for national government to act is during the first year or so of a new administration. It assuredly won’t go down well with the ‘middle England’ target readership of – say – the Daily Mail. There’ll be howls of protest. But it must be a priority to bring a sense of fairness to a deeply unequal country and, equally importantly, deliver some hope to voters in the so-called ‘red wall’ seats who either returned to Labour at the last election or voted for an ascendant Reform. We live in a fragile democracy. Restoring faith in government, local and national, begins in community, neighbourhood parish and town. We need the Labour government to think big and act local. We haven’t much time.
Peter Hetherington is a British journalist. He writes regularly for The Guardian on land, communities, and regeneration. He is also a vice-president, and past chair of the Town and Country Planning Association, former regional affairs and northern editor of The Guardian and the author of the 2015 book, Whose Land is Our Land? The use and abuse of Britain’s forgotten acres, and the 2021 book, Land Renewed: Reworking the Countryside.
Paradiplomacy involves multi-level actors in global politics and allows for local governance even within strict unitary state borders. These borders are sharper when regional or sub-national entities diverge from the central government’s policy position. Moreover, political constraints can be intimidation tactics, with authoritarian measures tightening control over municipal autonomy. Therefore, sub-national entities may adopt various strategies to bypass these limitations. Paradiplomacy could become a way out. Sub-national actors may take paradiplomacy as an outlet to counter political pressure and push back against central government authoritarianism. The opportunities created through paradiplomacy also bring local leaders to the forefront of foreign policy. Post-2019 Turkey stands as a benchmark for analysing this issue.
It would not be wrong to describe paradiplomacy as the lifeline of some local governments not aligned with Turkey’s ruling party after the 2019 local elections. Let us look at the background of the situation. AKP’s leading position in national and local governments since its first elections (2003 national, 2004 local) was shaken by the loss of metropolitan municipalities such as Istanbul and Ankara to the main opposition CHP in the 2019 local elections. Since then, a competitive-disharmony phase has opened between the CHP municipalities and the AKP government. In a pattern of competitive-disharmony, local leaders turn foreign relations into a political performance on stage. By strategically communicating and leveraging foreign ties for political gain, sub-national entities can demonstrate their ability to fulfill the needs of both domestic constituents and international partners, thereby positioning themselves to compete with the central government effectively.
The most notable politician in this respect has been Ekrem Imamoglu, the Mayor of Istanbul. This is not only because İmamoğlu is a skilful leader. In the absence of the backing of the national government to run a Megapolis like Istanbul, he has had to pursue other possibilities, making him the actor of paradiplomacy. Disharmony naturally emerges in these relationships, driven by state officials viewing sub-national authorities as existential threats. In centralized and authoritarian contexts, paradiplomacy within competitive-disharmony emerges in two critical areas of foreign policymaking: economic and political. Local leaders build reputations by overcoming these constraints while forging their path through diplomacy. In a sense, they endeavour to become actors in the game to avoid appearing as mere recipients of international actors. By doing so, they become the legitimate, albeit unofficial, government representative in the vacant areas.
The most recent example of this occurred last summer. President Erdoğan’s decision not to attend the 2024 Paris Olympics provided a diplomatic opening for İmamoğlu, who has consistently expressed his desire to host international events like the Summer Olympics. Riding the momentum of his victory in the March 2024 local elections, İmamoğlu travelled to Paris with nearly all CHP district mayors, supporting the national athletes and carving out a new space for diplomacy as he sets his sights on bringing the 2036 Olympics to Istanbul. Imamoğlu’s intention and diplomatic endeavours are also physically present in Paris under the name ‘İstanbul House.’ ‘İstanbul House’ was founded to showcase Istanbul’s sporting and cultural heritage and share the city’s future vision with the world. İmamoğlu’s high-profile involvement in the Paris Olympics and the opening of ‘Istanbul House’ was criticized as a ‘wasteful’ effort by people in Turkey who have struggled with the current economic crisis, yet from a diplomatic perspective, it was another step in the paradiplomacy he has been pursuing in since 2019.
Since the beginning of İmamoğlu’s tenure, instances such as the example of Paris have been evident. Economically, his first term has been marked by a persistent pursuit of external funding, with a focus on leveraging foreign sources such as Deutsche Bank and the French Development Agency. This strategy was designed to bypass the obstacles imposed by domestic funding authorities. Politically, İmamoğlu has also tested the limits of competition with the central government. In a highly unprecedented move in Turkish political history, he appeared as a guest speaker at the 2022 Munich Security Conference, where he outlined an agenda that directly challenged the government’s official foreign policy stance. His speech highlighted the growing democratic regression both domestically and globally, transforming his address into a cautionary narrative for those in attendance.
Although İmamoğlu still has four years remaining as Istanbul’s mayor, experts widely agree that his ambitions extend far beyond his current position. These aspirations are clearly reflected in his approach to paradiplomacy. While the volatility of Turkish politics leaves little room for certainty, one expectation remains clear: the longstanding tension between Erdoğan’s increasingly centralized government and İmamoğlu’s municipality is unlikely to dissipate. Considering the ambitious goals of both parties—one driven by a quest for power, the other by an insatiable pursuit of total hegemony—it is reasonable to expect that competition between the two will persist over the coming half-decade.
This blog post is based on Ertürk, A.C. and Kourou, N.S., 2024. Unlocking pathways in constrained local governance: exploring paradiplomacy under competitive-disharmony through the case of Istanbul. Local Government Studies, pp.1-22. Available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03003930.2024.2377223
Dr. Ahmet Cemal Erturk is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Istanbul Kultur University. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree in International Relations at Middle East Technical University, followed by a Master’s degree from the the University of Manchester and a second Master’s degree from the London School of Economics. Dr. Erturk further pursued his academic journey by obtaining a Ph.D. from the European Institute of Marmara University. Dr. Erturk’s research focuses on pivotal areas such as EU-Turkey relations, sustainable transport policies within the EU framework, and the process of Europeanization in Turkey.
Dr Nur Sinem Kourou is a lecturer at Istanbul Kültür University. She conducts research on the relationship between gender and politics, gender opposition, and women’s political participation in Turkey. Kourou completed Ph.D at Boğaziçi University in 2022. During their doctoral studies, she was a visiting researcher at Yale University. In 2022, Kourou received the Dicle Koğacıoğlu Article Award from Sabancı University’s Center for Gender and Women’s Studies Excellence, ranking first. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Researcher on a research project supported by the British Academy
The fact that governments face an array of challenges is a well-rehearsed argument. City governments across the globe are tackling a myriad of social, economic and environmental issues, from trying to reduce homelessness, improving health and wellbeing, or increasing educational attainment. In parallel, philanthropic foundations’ accumulated wealth and knowledge means they are increasingly welcomed as a government partner in addressing social needs. So why do philanthropic foundations engage with city governments?
The UK Association of Charitable Foundations defines philanthropic foundations as “charities with private, independent, sustainable income that supports individuals and/or organisations” (Pharoah and Walker, 2019, p. 1). In 2015, there were over 10,000 charitable foundations based in the UK and some of these are engaging with city governments.
In the U.S. context, philanthropic foundations have a long history of interacting with the government (Zunz, 2012) They have traditionally funded physical structures like libraries and opera houses, and in recent years, foundations have increasingly working directly with governments to tackle issues as diverse as climate change (Madénian and Van Nest, 2023), gun control, and poverty reduction (Barber, 2014; Nijman, 2009; Moir et al., 2014). Yet, there has been little exploration of this phenomenon in the English context.
Based upon the case study analysis of three contrasting English cities, Bristol, Manchester, and Newcastle, I drew upon qualitative interviews and policy reports to understand the interconnections between foundations and city governments.
Why do city governments and foundations collaborate
Philanthropic foundations can be a capacity-building partner of city government, providing direct funding and non-financial resources to help city governments solve problems. Philanthropic foundations provide city governments with direct funding and non-financial resources, including data, research, events, and other outputs, such as toolkits.
Foundations are motivated to improve public services, develop new approaches to problem-solving, advocate on policy issues, and fill funding gaps left by austerity. Foundations select city governments based on personal rapport and perceived ease of working.
City governments are motivated to engage with foundations to access resources, for foundations to help amplify the voice of city governments, and because foundations are perceived as less bureaucratic and more trustworthy funders.
Barriers to city government and foundation collaborations
Foundation engagement with city governments is inconsistent. This study found that certain city governments (in this case, Manchester and Bristol) had more partnerships with foundations. The reason is that foundations often will not work with city governments when the city government’s priorities are unclear, if they are hard to engage, or when there is a perceived slow pace of change in city hall.
On the part of city governments, a scarcity of resources can prevent them from seeking foundation resources. With the impacts of austerity still lingering, it may have been surmised that austerity could prompt cities to seek foundation support, instead, this study has found that a lack of internal capacity can prevent the city government from seeking foundation involvement.
Implications for policy and practice
City governments interacting with foundations in England is a relatively nascent and under-explored phenomenon. As well as few academic studies, there is often an opaqueness in the nature of these collaborations. A lack of transparency can hinder scrutiny, which is problematic if city governments and their partners are to be held to account. Going forward, a key facet of city government engagement with foundations should be a commitment to transparency in the nature of the collaboration and an openness to sharing evidence of the impacts of the interactions on the outcomes that the foundation and city governments are trying to achieve.
Areas for future research
As a relatively underexplored topic, more research could usefully explore foundation engagement with city governments across England on a larger scale, particularly to understand the implications for accountability. Futuremore, future research could usefully explore whether philanthropic foundations prioritise collaborating with city governments over different types of organisations, such as charities, and if so, whether this is because city governments enable potentially larger degrees of policy influence than more “marginal” political institutions, such as NGOs or community groups.
To find out more about the research, please contact Dr Ruth Puttick, [email protected]
Dr Ruth Puttick runs a research consultancy and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London. She has over 15 years of practical research experience in the public and private sectors advising on public sector reform, innovation and impact. She served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the UK Government’s Open Innovation Team, and before that, she worked at Tony Blair Associates, a global management consultancy, helping establish the policy and research team in the government advisory practice. Prior to that, she spent six years at Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency. Ruth is on X.com @rputtick and can be contacted at www.ruthputtick.com
This blog was prompted partly by Vivien Lowndes’ and Phil Swann’s recent INLOGOV blog giving “Two cheers for combined authorities and their mayors”. Substantively, anyway, although the decisive stimulus was the realisation that most, if not all, of those present at the relevant ‘Brown Bag’ session would probably have been unaware that seated among them was the co-author of almost certainly the most comprehensive examination of this topic by any INLOGOV colleague over the years.
I refer to the appropriately labelled ‘long-read’, also masquerading as an INLOGOV blog and entitled Briefing Paper: Elected Mayors, published shortly before the 2017 elections of what I think of as the second generation of elected mayors – and produced by Prof Catherine Staite and a Jason Lowther.
Catherine, nowadays an Emeritus Professor of Public Management, had recently stepped down as Director of INLOGOV, in which capacity she had, among numerous other initiatives, both launched and regularly contributed to our/her blog. And, while I certainly recalled reading the Briefing Paper, I confess that, with his name meaning little to me at the time, I’d forgotten her co-author. Apologies, Jason.
He claimed, moreover, that he himself had “forgotten” it (email, 14/5), which I didn’t, of course, believe … until, a few days later and following some ‘research’, I discovered one of my own INLOGOV blogs, on the Magna Carta and 800 years of Elected Mayors, which I really had totally forgotten. Whereupon I realised too that I couldn’t actually recall much of what Catherine, I and other colleagues contributed to that decade of debate on elected mayoral evolution.
So, the remainder, the structure, and – I fear – the length of this blog were prompted, yes, by much of the media coverage of this month’s elections, and the sense that the spread and substance of mayoral government over the past decade aren’t fully recognised even by those who supposedly follow these things; and also by the notion that it would be a pleasing mini-tribute to Catherine to do so by identifying and italicising particularly some of her and colleagues’ INLOGOV blog contributions on these mayoral matters over the years.
We start, however, for the benefit of comparatively late arrivals, at the beginning of not the blog, but the concept. Mayoral government is a postulation you might expect to have found a supportive, even enthusiastic, reception in an Institute of Local Government Studies and it mainly did, albeit with perhaps a certain reservation. Directly elected mayors (DEMs) had played a fluctuating role in the Blair Government’s local government agenda from the outset. London, noted in Labour’s 1997 manifesto as “the only Western capital without an elected city government”, would have a “new deal”. Which took the form in 2000 of the creation of the Mayor-led Greater London Authority – in the manifesto, so no referendum required. Probably no reminder required either, but they’ve been: Ken Livingstone (Ind/Lab; 2000-08), Boris Johnson (Con; 2008-16); Sadiq Khan (Lab; 2016- ).
The Local Government Act 2000 then provided all English and Welsh councils with optional alternatives to the traditional committee system. Chiefly, following a petition of more than 5% of their electorate, they could hold a referendum on whether to introduce a directly elected mayor plus cabinet. There were 30 of these referendums in 2001/02, producing 11 DEMs – plus Stoke-on-Trent’s short-lived mayor-plus-committee system – three in London boroughs, but most famously Hartlepool United’s football mascot, H’Angus the Monkey, aka Stuart Drummond (Indep).
Ten referendums over the ensuing decade produced a further three mayors, prompting the now Cameron-led Conservatives to pledge in their 2010 manifesto to introduce elected ‘Boris-style’ mayors for England’s 12 (eventually 11) largest cities, with significant responsibilities including control of rail and bus services, and money to invest in high-speed broadband.
Birmingham voted 58% against, despite Labour’s having in Liam Byrne a candidate raring to go, and Coventry 64% against. There was speculation over whether the addition of a well publicised mayoral recall provision(CG) might have swung some of the lost referendums. But it was what it looked: an overdue, and to some welcome(Andrew Coulson), end of an episode(Karin Bottom);arguably “the wrong solution to the wrong problem”(Catherine Durose).
Since then, the referendums successfully removing elected mayors (Stoke-on-Trent, Hartlepool, Torbay, Bristol) have exceeded those creating new ones (Copeland, Croydon) – though, in fairness, those four removals were more than matched by five retention votes.
A ‘mayoral map’ at the end of that first decade would have looked something like the inset in my illustration of in fact the first 20 years of referendum results – numerous splotches of red for Reject, a few smaller green specks for Accept, and overall a patchy, somewhat arbitrary, experiment that on a national scale never really took off.
The mayoral concept, though, had also generated interest outside local government – the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), for instance, advocating Mayors for Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, and Liverpool City Region to take the required ‘big’ decisions on housing, transport, and regional development. Prime Minister David Cameron too was a ‘city mayors’ fan, although what scale of ‘city’ wasn’t initially clear, until in 2014 what became known as the first ‘devolution deal’ (Catherine Needham) was announced with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Headed by an elected ‘metro-mayor’ (CG), comparable to the Mayor of London, the GMCA would have greater control over local transport, housing, skills and healthcare, with “the levers you need to grow your local economy”.
New legislation – the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 – was required, allowing the introduction of directly elected Mayoral Combined Authority or ‘Metro Mayors’(Vivien Lowndes & Phil Swann) (+ Catherine Staite) in England and Wales, with devolved housing, transport, planning and policing powers.
The Combined Authority elections were held in May 2017 – not coinciding with the General Election(CG) as PM Theresa May had contemplated but, in contrast to Rishi Sunak, chickened out of – with perhaps usefully split results(CG). Elected were Andy Burnham (Lab, Greater Manchester), Steve Rotheram (Lab, Liverpool City Region), Ben Houchen (Cons, Tees Valley), Andy Street (Cons, West Midlands), Tim Bowles (Cons, West of England), and James Palmer (Cons, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough) – followed in 2018 by Dan Jarvis (Lab, Sheffield City Region). The map had started to change – even within the first hundred days (CG) – stutteringly under the less committed Theresa May and/or in several cases where groups of local authorities failed to agree – but eventually dramatically, as evidenced in the larger illustrated map. The Staite/Lowther ‘Briefing Paper’ was well timed.
A few years on, mayoral devolution has trailblazed across the country (CG) to a greater extent than even some commentators on this year’s local elections seemed to have difficulty grasping. As of March 2024, devolution deals had been agreed with 22 areas, covering 60% of the English population – most recently, in late 2022, North of Tyne, Norfolk/Suffolk, East Midlands, York & North Yorkshire; in 2023 Cornwall, Greater Manchester and West Midlands (‘Trailblazers’), Greater Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Hull/East Yorkshire; and so far in 2024 Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire and Surrey.
From next year, if you draw a straightish line from, say, Ipswich in South Suffolk up through about Alvechurch in South Birmingham, heading for Shrewsbury, at least five-sixths of the bits of England to your north will be under mayoral devolution. Which, to me anyway, seems pretty dramatic news, and considerably more interesting than the endless General Election Date speculation that passed this May for ‘Local Elections’ reporting.
Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan. He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.
INLOGOV Blog 