Less than six months from now, “metro-mayors” will take office in some of England’s biggest cities, armed with the largest personal mandates in politics after Sadiq Khan’s. And with these mayors being given powers over housing, transport and infrastructure in their city region, it’s no surprise that candidates from Westminster and the business community have been drawn to the roles, including Andy Burnham, former shadow health secretary, and Andy Street, former John Lewis managing director.
However, it’s also clear that these metro-mayors will face challenges when they take office in May. These include negotiating economic uncertainty as Brexit negotiations begin in earnest, and winning over the local politicians and residents who are sceptical about the role. These new mayors will not only need to deliver on their electoral promises, but also have to establish their offices as efficient, effective and credible in Britain’s centralised system of governance.
That means hitting the ground running. One way they can do this is by learning from the successes and mistakes of London’s trio of mayors since the office was created in 2000. Handily for all the candidates, a report from Centre for Cities, a think tank, highlights some of the lessons to take from Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and (despite it being early days) Sadiq Khan’s experiences in office. The work, based on interviews with senior political advisors to the capital’s mayors, also points to some potential pitfalls.
“An early ‘policy win’ would help shore up public support for the role
Setting out clearly what they want to achieve, and how they’re going to do it, will be vital to success. Since the EU referendum, Mr Kahn has been clear about his vision that “London is open” to international business and workers. Similarly, both Mr Livingstone and Mr Johnson articulated a focus on London as a global city, embracing its diversity and business potential. And while the mayors of Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and Liverpool will face different opportunities and challenges, each must communicate a view of their city-region’s future, and the policies that will help achieve it.
An early “policy win” would help shore up public support for the role and demonstrate that the mayors mean business. For example, Mr Kahn’s success in implementing the “hopper fare” — allowing Londoners to make a free bus journey within an hour of paying for their first fare — soon after taking office offered a quick demonstration of what he could do. Again, policies will differ from city-to-city, but each of the mayoral candidates should have an eye-catching change up their sleeve that they can secure quickly.
Advertisement
It will also be crucial to work well with national government, because ministers will ultimately decide how much money metro-mayors have to spend and which projects they can deliver. This will be especially important in Greater Manchester and Liverpool, which are likely to have Labour mayors working under a Conservative government. An example for them is the way Mr Johnson managed preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games after taking office in 2008. The campaign to secure the event for London was, of course, led by Labour politicians such as Mr Livingstone and Tessa Jowell. But Mr Johnson’s willingness to work with the last Labour government ensured the Olympics were a huge success — an achievement that has come to define his term as mayor.
“Mayors will need to exploit their considerable mandate to act boldly and decisively
Forming local partnerships will be high on the agenda because devolution will introduce cabinets of local authority leaders alongside the mayoral offices and these will have the power to veto some mayoral decisions with a two-thirds majority. Also, mayors will need to exploit their considerable mandate — having been elected by hundreds of thousands of people — to act boldly and decisively on the issues that matter to their citizens. It was by taking advantage of his personal mandate that Mr Livingstone, for example, introduced the congestion charge in 2003, while Mr Johnson went beyond his remit as mayor to oppose plans to expand Heathrow.
There’s a lot at stake for these metro-mayors. Learning the lessons — good and bad — from the experiences of the capital’s mayors will not only help ensure they make the right decisions on behalf of people they will represent, it will also help to secure the long-term future of the mayoral offices in the political landscape.
Alexandra Jones is chief executive of Centre for Cities
www.centreforcities.org