Our political editor, WALTER CRONXITE, delved deeper into the White Paper on English devolution to discover a proposal which could end directly elected borough mayors in London, including Croydon
Bitten off more than he can chew: out of his depth Jason Perry could end up being a one-term mayor
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner made a speech yesterday promising devolution across England, with a mayor for every region in a major redesign of local government.
But buried in the proposals contained within the Labour government’s White Paper were a couple of paragraphs that appear to sound the death knell for the five mayors of boroughs within Greater London – and that includes Croydon and could make Jason Perry a one-term mayor.
“Mayors are the government’s strong preference,” the White Paper states at paragraph 2.2.2.
But for Tory Mayor Perry, elected in 2022 and who is pitching for another four-year term on £82,000 per year, such preference does not extend as far down as local council level in a city which has a mayor who already has strategic powers.
The White Paper, issued yesterday, says that the government will “discontinue the individual local authority devolution model in its mayoral form”.
For proposals heralded as offering more devolved powers from Whitehall, this decision appears to be, at least, contradictory, if not downright anti-democratic.
It is just four years since Croydon residents voted in a referendum in favour of switching to a mayoral system, determining that it is #ABitLessShit (© Inside Croydon 2021) than the previous, “strong leader” model.
White Paper: Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner likes mayors, just not at borough level
But what Rayner and her local government minister, Jim McMahon, mean when they express their preference for mayors is a system of city, metro and regional mayors, just as London has had at City Hall for the last quarter-century.
Merging district councils into county councils – the fate that seems to await Tandridge, Epsom and Ewell and Reigate and Banstead in Surrey – will not be a magic wand to solve the crisis in local government finances, although it will deliver some savings by streamlining the administration of a range of local services, from bin collections to adult care, from road repairs to public libraries.
Rayner’s wonks reckon the mergers will save £2billion, which really is just scratching the surface of the local government financing problem when you consider that Croydon, alone, has crushing debts of £1.5billion.
Rayner said in her speech that giving regional mayors more powers over housing, transport, education and employment would help drive economic growth.
Rayner described Britain as the “most centralised” country in Europe and pledged to end “micromanaging by central government”. The plans represent the biggest local government reorganisation for England in 50 years.
Strategic: as far as the Rayner reforms are concerned, London has a mayor in Sadiq Khan
Local government in England is covered by a patchwork of arrangements where responsibilities for local services are shared between county councils, which manage areas including social care and education, and district councils, which are responsible for services such as bin collections.
Some areas have “unitary” authorities responsible for both, while others have multi-council “combined” authorities with greater powers in areas such as transport, planning and housing. For example, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire now fall under the East Midlands Combined County Authority (snappy, eh?), and in May elected their first mayor, Labour’s Claire Ward.
But still, around half of England’s population live in an area not covered by a devolution deal.
“We must rewire England and end the hoarding in Whitehall by devolving power and money from central government to those with skin in the game,” Rayner said.
In London, there already exists a strategic tier of government, the Greater London Authority, under the city’s mayor. The London Mayor, with strategic overview of London’s planning, housing, policing and transport, already charges their own precept on Londoners’ Council Tax.
But to then have another tier of “mini-mayors”, at borough level, as Croydon and four other London councils do, “would risk the optimal delivery” of services, according to the White Paper.
The section in the proposals states:
Given Mayors are the government’s strong preference, the deepest powers will only be available at the Mayoral level and higher. Mayors should have a unique role in an institution which allows them to focus fully on their devolved responsibilities, while council leaders must continue to focus on leading their place and delivering vital services. Conflating these two responsibilities into the same individual and institution, as is the case if an individual local authority had a mayoral model of devolution, would risk the optimal delivery of both. We will therefore discontinue the individual Local Authority devolution model in its mayoral form.
It remains unclear why the White Paper should use the word “discontinue”, rather than, say, “abolish”. And it is not certain how quickly such “discontinuance” could be in place – Croydon’s Tory Mayor Perry is due to seek re-election in 2026. Inside Croydon has sought urgent clarification from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The next local council elections across London are due to take place in less than 18 months’ time. Sources suggest that that is enough time for boroughs such as Croydon, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Lewisham to unravel their mayoral election process and revert to simply electing ward councillors.
Such a move would have some helpful consequences for Labour in London, since it would immediately strip controversial Lutfur Rahman of the prestige of being Mayor of Tower Hamlets (though his Aspire Party might well win a majority of council seats).
And it could also deal with what is being described as “the Rohksana Fiaz problem” in Newham, where the first elected woman mayor is seen as being out-of-step with Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Inside Croydon asked Mayor Perry what it feels like to be “discontinued”. For once, the council-funded rent-a-quote had nothing to say.
Read more: Croydon votes 4-to-1 in favour of having directly elected mayor
Reed more: MP Reed admits live on air: ‘I’m not anti mayoral system’
Read more: Nothing adds up as Labour plays numbers game over mayor
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
I’d rather restrict the current Mayor of London’s area and retain the current post of Mayor of Croydon, allowing for certain Greater London arrangements like TfL that should be retained.
The government is discontinuing previous Tory style devolution deals to single authorities adopting a Mayoral model.
The government regards devolution deals with Mayors as best being in the form sub-regional strategic authorities covering several council areas.
Croydon is not a devolution model authority and is not in line for a Mayoralty abolition.
I think the bigger likelihood for change for Croydon is the White Paper’s desire for merged councils where “there is evidence of failure”.
Perry was, is, a bit less shit. And we should be gratefuo for that (very) small mercy.
No, Chris. He really is a lot worse than even iC feared
Perry isn’t even in charge of the Council anymore if you have noticed. Final decision making is made by Central Government commissioners. He isn’t less anything, he is a void.
doesn’t that just hide ‘evidence of failure’?
Perry will be able to blame his downfall on the Labour government rather than proving unpopular with the electorate. Which is a shame
Mayors at local level have been at best an expensive irrelevance to democracy and at worst have concentrated power in the hands of one man (yes, it usually was a man) with his hand-picked ‘cabinet’, leaving other elected councillors out of the loop of decision making. In what way have the five London boroughs with directly elected mayors been run any better than the 27 without? We need one mayor, for London, not local feifdoms.
Having a directly elected mayor in Croydon may have been a “bit less shit” in theory, but Piss Poor Perry has brought the Croydon mayoral role into such disrepute, that getting rid of him and the post has got to be the best option. Perry’s doctor would be pleased because he looks like he has enjoyed too many free dinners.
Labour rearranging the deckchairs on the Local Authority Titanic
Local Councils are sinking under a mountain of debt and a lack of democracy. Labour is planning to continue the Conservative cuts to public services and now planning to make the system less demcratic by taking powers away from local Councils and giving them to regional Mayors – the opposite of what we need.
I’ve writen before in Inside Croydon explaining why putting all the power in one person’s hands is bad for democracy and I stood to be Mayor of Croydon to put the power back in the hands of residents. So, if these changes end the Mayoral system in Cryodn that will be a good thing.
But the fundamental flaw in local democracy is how Councillors are elected. We still use the outdated first-past-the-post elections in seperate wards rather than having a Council that actually reflects how people voted – Labour and Conservative currently have 96% of the Councillors in Croydon even though they only got 73% of the votes between them. Labour and the Conservatives then work together to give themselves all the top jobs based on how many Councillors they have, not based on how the people of Croydon voted.
If we want Councils to work better and properly reflect what people want, then we not only need to restore central Government funding but we also need to change the election systems to make them democratic. We should put power in the hands of the people, not regional or local Mayors.
Be careful what you wish for Peter – you’d be massacred at election time and Reform would most likely get a majority, going on their meteoric rise..
The Greens consistently get a higher percentage of votes than we do of Councillors so a fairer system would mean we have more people elected. The number of people voting Green is also getting bigger.
We got more votes than the public school millionaires who own Reform at the last election in Croydon and our vote went up by more than them. I think Croydon people have already started to see though Reform’s nonsense and as time goes on more and more people will realise that Reform don’t care about anybody but themselves and the whole thing is just a con to get tax cuts for millionaires.
But the fundamental point is that I want a fairer system, whoever gets elected. I don’t want a system that only works for some parties, I want a system that fairly reflects what the public want.
There will still be councils. They will still need to be led. I suspect there will still be a directly elected model with a different name
Councils need to be “led” ? Whatever happened to that campaign group, Led by Donkeys ?!
Not sure what to make of getting rid of mayors and merging councils. Is it a cost saving exercise, a power grab? Will it lead to less accountability?
Surely voters will have less power to express their voice at the voting box when governing power is more concentrated. The result is there will be fewer candidates to vote for and fewer occasions to vote.
Just a reminder not all white papers make it into legislation and with the urgency this Government acts I wouldn’t hold your breath to see this “reform” being brought into practice because as usual the believed agglomeration of services over a wider area rarely ever accomplish the huge cost savings that are claimed for them and just as often increase costs and inefficiency.
We have returned to the Blair era top down version of devolution, where it believes changing the structure of Local Government into larger pieces somehow improves local democracy without any real accompanying powers provided to the Local Authorities to act independently of Central Government. It is the same old Blairite sophistry where making Councils bigger improves local participation. A complete nonsense.
Though perhaps we should sound the warning that it was the Cameron/Clegg/Osborne era Localism Act which did give Councils greater independence to raise borrowing for property development created much of the financial disaster that many Councils walked into.
Good point Derek, but remember – councils campaigned for those extra powers. The essence of the relevant Loca;l Government Act was that councils could do anything that was legal. Previously, they could only do what was specifically mentioned in legislation. The assumption was that they would act responsibly and professionally. Jury’s out on whether those freedoms granted were a good thing.
I am told Councils campaigned for these powers in the Localism Act, but when I look for this Christopher there is no direct evidence of it and you are never able to provide it. The Localism Act from what I can see was a Cameron initiative of the Big Society. This was his belief that the failure of Local Governance were due to direct Central Govt. action and could be replaced by voluntary groups, which conveniently would allow Central Government to reduce Local Government funding even though most of it’s spending is directed by the Statutory duties required by Central Government.
Please note the failure of the Big Society initiative. Even Cameron had stopped referring to it by 2014. Again local authorities were being directed by Central authority because the fundamental relationship is not changed if there is a statutory duty to follow parliamentary law.
I do enjoy this assumption they would act responsibly and professionally. They were being asked to speculate and gamble. The jury is not out. It was the disaster that led to the crisis in Local Government that we will have to endure for as long as it will take to acheive the redevelopment of the Whitgift Centre.