Elected Mayors - The Plot thickens

Elected mayors - The plot thickens.

Looks like the Bolton News are not going to publish my overly-long letter copied to my previous blog.

However, todays Bolton News carries another letter on the subject, this time from a Mr P A Williams of Harwood.

Let's have a referendum

I take issue with Alan Calvert’s comment that the “Elected mayor plan is plain daft”.

If the result of the consultation was democratically flawed, then it was undemocratic, and as such the voters deserve a referendum on the matter. He makes a point about the few people that replied in the consultation but surely this was due to the way it was organised.

I haven’t received a Bolton Scene for months, and when I requested a consultation form at my local library I was told they had none and didn’t know they were available. After the Market Hall fiasco, it seems to me that unless any result is to the liking of this council it is rejected.

Councillors are elected to represent their constituents and, on the whole, do this well. But are any of them qualified to run the town? I doubt it, and certainly not part-time.

If any of the existing councillors would like the job of elected mayor they could stand for election, that way all the people of Bolton would have a vote and not just the few ward members who vote for their councillor who then becomes leader. Is that democratic??

So Alan, don’t toe the ruling party line like a ventriloquists’ dummy, speak for the people and champion real democracy.

Mr P A Williams Northwood Harwood
.....................................................................................

Had no response yet to my e-mail to John Denham but I have sight of a response from the Director of the Chief Executives Department at Bolton Council to a similar complaint from another Bolton resident.

After listing the procedures prescribed by the Local Government Act in relation to changing the way the Executive operates, he writes:-

"Despite the above being included within the Act it does not provide either for any specific form of consultation or for any specific consultation period. In addition the department for Communities and Local Government decided not to issue any guidance to Local Authorities as to what the Department considers would constitute 'reasonable steps'. As a result, each Local Authority has had to reach its own decision as to the form and level of public consultation that it considers to be appropriate."

This is simply not true !!!!!!

The predecessor of the Department for Communities and Local Government, i.e. The Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, in December 1999 issued the following:-

New Council Constitutions
Consultation Guidelines for English Local Authorities

This can be downloaded in pdf format from the following website.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/localgovernment/newcouncilconstitutions3

It is difficult to get past many pages before realising that the consultation organised by Bolton Council comes nowhere near satisfying these guidelines and best practice.

It is worrying that the Director of the Chief Executives Dept is seemingly unaware of this document and it simply re-enforces my cynicism about the Council paying lip service to the requirements of the Act in the hope of pushing through their preferred option of Leader and Cabinet.

I've e-mailed this info to John Denham.

The Council seems to think they are in the clear on this one.

An interesting thought. If the Secretary of State concludes that the consultation was flawed and didn't fulfill the requirements of the Act, does this mean that any subsequent actions by the Council in pursuing their preferred option of Leader & Cabinet through full Council on December 9th and beyond would be 'Ultra Vires'?

This one has still got legs - as they say in the press.

I feel another letter to the Bolton News coming on.

Paul