A turning point for England’s big cities?

The public debate lags far behind the electoral timetable, however. Recent polling for the BBC found that 62% of respondents in Yorkshire still didn’t know the vote was coming up. And a poll for BBC West Midlands found 59% of Birmingham citizens are unaware of the referendum. Fortunately, awareness is likely to improve. Earlier this week the Prime Minister announced a ‘Mayors Cabinet’ signalling to cities that a mayor will give them a voice in Westminster.  Today, Cities Minister Greg Clark MP – the Government’s foremost advocate of the mayoral model – gives a keynote speech in Birmingham at an Institute for Government event. Lords Heseltine and Adonis, two vocal proponents of elected mayors will be present and a panel, including current Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, will debate the impact elected mayors might have. The event also marks the launch of the Institute’s new publication “What can elected mayors do for our cities?”, a collection of essays from think tanks and research institutes from across the political spectrum debating what elected mayors might offer. The consensus in the publication is remarkable:  the introduction of elected mayors is judged to represent a clear improvement on the current system, although they are not a panacea for all of the difficulties faced by local government. Some of the potential benefits they discuss are: •    Visibility: New Institute for Government polling finds that, in areas with traditional council leaders, just 8% of respondents could correctly name their local council leader.  That compares with a 2003 poll which found that, on average, 57% of voters in mayoral areas recognised the name of their local leader.  Voters need to know who they are holding to account in order to hold them to account effectively. •    Stability: Leadership turnover in the established mayoral authorities has less than half that in neighbouring authorities with the leader and cabinet model. All three of the London borough mayors elected in 2000 have since been re-elected twice. Over the same period, neighbouring Barking and Dagenham has had two leaders, Waltham Forest had three, Southwark four, Camden five, Barnet six and Redbridge seven.  Such leadership churn can be an obstacle to effective long-term policymaking. •    City-wide leadership: Council leaders are elected by constituents of just one ward and depend on councillors for selection. Because they are directly elected, mayors tend to be more focused outwards on the electorate and more willing to back vital infrastructure investment that might create winners and losers but will benefit the local economy overall. There are of course limits to what a change in governance can do. Mayors have certainly not improved diversity in local politics. Of the twenty two people to have held mayoral office in the UK so far, only two have been women (Dorothy Thornhill in Watford, and Linda Arkley in North Tyneside) and only one has been from a minority ethnic group (Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets). Our new poll published today shows that, when asked the referendum question, 38% of voters in areas without mayors wanted to switch to the mayoral system, 25% preferred the status quo, 14% didn’t know and 22% had no preference.  But this does not necessarily mean that all referenda cities will embrace the mayoral offer. Low turnouts may throw up unrepresentative results and past referenda have also shown the critical importance of local campaigning. If a number of big cities do switch to the mayoral system in May, however, there might yet be radical consequences.  In their chapters for this collection of essays, Guy Lodge and Tony Travers highlight that mayors, and particularly the London mayor, have proven highly effective at lobbying Whitehall and Westminster for increased investment and new powers. England is among the world’s most centralised political system but, by the end of 2012, elected mayors across the country may be using their access to Number 10 to vocally lobby for decentralisation, uniting with other new local leaders, such as the police and crime commissioners. Could this be a moment for reversing the centralising tendencies of the English nation?