The coming months seem certain to see an acceleration towards political leadership by elected mayors, and further challenges to the need for a single local authority chief executive. Following decisions in Leicester, Salford and Liverpool, a further 10 cities will hold referenda on a city mayor in May. Meanwhile a number of county councils and unitary authorities are instituting officer leadership teams, without a full chief executive.
There is huge controversy over whether these trends are the right direction of travel for local government. The evidence and analysis on elected mayors is ambiguous – and on dispensing with the chief executive it is generally rather adverse.
As the chief who led Doncaster Council into elected mayoral governance, I should declare an interest here – and perhaps take some responsibility for subsequent events. However, the Doncaster example is revealing. It illustrates the potential, as well as the dangers, of today's trends.
Doncaster had experienced several years of police and audit investigations and performance concerns in the 1990s. As an incoming chief executive working with a new political leadership team, I instituted what was then seen as a radical governance reform, approved by Doncaster residents in a referendum. The move to mayoral governance marked a symbolic and substantive shift from difficulties stretching back to the miners strikes in the early 1980s.
National politicians, the media, and indeed local government itself now tends to characterise Doncaster as a chronic basket case, but by December 2002 – the first Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of upper tier councils – it was showcased as one of the four fastest improving councils in the country.
Right up to the end of the decade, the area changed significantly. Investments in a new airport, the university, the racecourse and community stadium, and a portfolio of community regeneration and neighbourhood management programmes, positioned the town as a growth hub; and a gateway to Yorkshire and the Humber.
The foundation of Doncaster's (admittedly transitory) success was not, in my opinion, the textbook prescription of a political/managerial spilt. Rather, it was founded upon:
• A close personal chemistry between mayor and chief executive
• A broad leadership team – including a strong deputy mayor and talented group of senior and middle ranking officers
• Relationships with those outside the council
• Performance management
Both the elected mayor and the chief executive would say they were responsible for strategy, relationship and performance management.
Of course, we brought slightly differing starting points and nuances to the project. Perhaps I focused more on economic growth and generating wealth, while the mayor focused on community participation. Certainly the mayor tended to make the value judgements; I majored on the execution and delivery of those political calls.
Our personal investment in detailed deliberation (often mediated by the deputy mayor) allowed us to bring our two perspectives together.
I would argue that Doncaster's ingredients of success are important for today's debate over local leadership. Managing the complexity of large places and their institutions needs the capacity of a broad team of leaders, all looking out. Having a creative tension at the apex of that team gives a shape and direction to change that, alone, each could not muster.
Sadly, the effective partnership celebrated in that initial CPA report was not sustained; by the summer of 2003 the mayor and myself agreed to go our separate ways.
Looking back today, this served to highlight the need for political and professioanl succession planning. Outside London, which is clearly a one off, there is not (yet) a strong track record of successful transition between successive mayors. Similarly, dispensing with a CEO has raised a number of challenges for long-run organisation and leadership development.
The local authority leaders of tomorrow – both political and professional – can learn lessons from a much finer grain understanding of places like Doncaster than is customarily presented by their respective peer groups and through the media. Incoming mayors have an opportunity to replicate Doncaster's initial success – but also to think through strategies they need to put in place to sustain progress over the medium and longer terms.
I suspect successful political mayors of this decade will be those who work closely with their professional colleagues to reach an enduring understanding.
David Marlow is director of Third Life Economics and a former local government chief executive
