Elected Mayor of Thanet

There has been some comment in the last few days on Thanet Strife and Eastcliff Richard blogs (links on sidebar) about a mayor of Thanet, so I have set out my understanding of the situation and would appreciate any corrections or additions.

Since I posted about this in May I have been sounding out the people I know, customers in the shop and local politicians on this one.

It is important to understand this is not another tier of government but a different method of organising the government we have already got.

At the moment both Labour and Conservatives have a core of most experienced councillors who make up the cabinet members when they are elected and the two party safe seat system means they are pretty much always elected.

All of the council elect a leader, who then selects the cabinet, effectively these tend to be one-candidate elections because of the two party system we have, so it is normally not possible for any of the councillors outside of the core group to be elected leader.

The leader of course makes sure that the cabinet is formed mostly from the core group, who will support his decisions, if we are lucky and get a good leader he selects the most able councillors if we are unlucky he selects the most malleable, usually it seems to be somewhere in between.

Within these core groups great store is set in phrase experienced councillor, however I believe it possible that by experience in this instance, what they are talking about is experience at running a badly organised costly and ineffective administration that they have created.

It is possible to set up a council where delegation and selection of councillors and senor officers can produce an administration to swamp the new councillors with masses unsorted and irrelevant bureaucracy to the point where they become virtually ineffective.

This of course creates a situation where the most able councillors outside of the core group, having wasted their skills that put forward for the benefit of the local community are unlikely to stand for re-election.

It is also possible to have so many reorganisations of truly qualified and experienced officers to arrive at a situation were those remaining have such a large workload that they are unable to do their jobs properly and officers who lack qualifications and experience are trying to do jobs that they are incapable of.

With the mayoral system the mayor is elected by us so he owes no old favours to the other councillors, he can select the most able, qualified and experienced council officer as his advising chief executive and decide which of the councillors is most suitable for each job, he knows that if he fails to do so he wont get re-elected in four years time.

The elected mayor has a choice of operating a cabinet system as we have now or giving each councillor he deems competent a brief, with supporting officers and operating decision making at full council.

Once they understand how it works, virtually every one I have spoken to seems to prefer the idea of the mayoral system as a solution to getting away from the rut we have got into, both under Labour and Conservative administrations.

The exception to this being some senior councillors of both parties, who put forward the rather peculiar argument that although the electorate was competent to vote for them, they would not be competent to select a leader.

At the moment we have a situation where the colour of our local government is pretty much caused by dissatisfaction in the opposite colour of national government, electoral choice at local level is not as democratic as it should be.

With the government of Thanet at the moment, where so many people seem so dissatisfied with what they have, it is most important to seek solutions rather than just to apportion blame and I think it possible that a mayor could be a solution.

The picture above is of A B C Kempe mayor of Ramsgate.