Should York have an elected mayor?

YES, says Peter Vaughan, Liberal Democrat and former Lord Mayor of York

Whether we like it or not, going back to the old committee system is not even an option. Therefore I believe a directly-elected executive mayor is an experiment well worth pursuing. We need to experiment, because it is clear local government has problems.

The new system of cabinet government we have in York is not, in my view, an improvement on the committee system. There is a lack of open debate and discussion, and the scrutiny system that is supposed to provide an opportunity to examine cabinet decisions is under-resourced and not working properly. Therefore, if proper democratic controls are thought about and put in place from the beginning, there is no reason why an executive mayor voted for by the electorate should not be worth a very considerable trial period.

My view - which is not in any way the position of the Liberal Democrat group, who are opposed to an elected mayor - is that a directly elected mayor would be able to focus on finding solutions, making decisions and getting them implemented more quickly and effectively.

The worst of all worlds in local government is to have either monolithic one-party rule or a hung council. The latter can lead to lack of decision-making and lack of direction, which does the people of York no favours.

There is a need for better management. People are looking for good services, they are less concerned about the party providing them. A directly-elected executive mayor would need to have a programme of policies and a spending platform that was submitted to the electorate, otherwise he or she would not get elected. But there would be a chance to identify the real problems, see opportunities more clearly, and address them more directly.

It would also open up the democratic process. There would be an opportunity for independents to stand, and an elected mayor and council elected by proportional representation would also better reflect voters' wishes.

The decisions of an executive mayor would need to be properly monitored and audited, so there would need to be a powerful scrutiny system. But if the electorate was not happy, he or she could be voted out of office, which would be an ultimate form of control.

Through an executive mayor we could also have more local control over local taxation. I believe it is the people of York who know what is best for York, not Whitehall. York should have much more direct involvement about how it raises taxes. We don't have control over business rates, even though they represent one third of our income.

Finally, having a directly-elected executive mayor need not be any threat to the ambassadorial role of York's Lord Mayor. I see no reason why we could not have both. London has its Lord Mayor of the City of London, and there is no clash between that role and the new role of executive mayor of London.

NO, says DAVID WILDE, former Labour councillor and ex-Lord Mayor

The traditional English mayor, the system we have had for a long time and which gives us our Lord Mayor, has worked well. The function it carries out, that of being an ambassador for the city, is a very important one. I believe that it ought to be kept, particularly in a historic city like York for which the tourist trade is important.

With a directly-elected mayor with executive powers, you are talking about something totally different. You would really be going back to the US model. I sometimes think we start to copy American ideas just when they are starting to be thrown out in the US.

The thing that really worries me about such a system is the powers of an elected mayor.

They would have an enormous amount of power, for example to employ people, and I think that could be open to corruption.

You would also have to alter the whole political system, and you could have all sorts of strange people coming forward to stand.

The man who has been elected mayor of New York, for example, has got the job because he is a billionaire. Do we really want that?

I know a number of people do have general misgivings about the system of executive, cabinet government we have in York at the moment.

I believe there are perhaps other ways of running the system than a cabinet and executive. Nobody has proved to me that the committee system was a bad system.

At least it was open and democratic. With the cabinet system there is too much power concentrated in too few hands. There is a problem with whether it is democratic enough.

When we had committees there were dedicated groups of members on, for example, the education committee who had acquired a great deal of knowledge and expertise about the work of that committee.

Now, councillors are not well briefed and do not have enough information.

The scrutiny committees are supposed to address that problem, but I won't really believe in them until the day a scrutiny committee is able to stop something going through which the ruling party wants to go through. They are not powerful enough.

There are even problems at national level with parliamentary select committees.

They are much stronger than scrutiny committees but, even so, people feel they are not strong enough.

Nevertheless, an executive mayor is not the way forward. In a sense, we already have a person who fulfils the function of an elected mayor, and that is the leader of the council.

With a directly elected executive mayor there would be even more concentration of power in the hands of a few people than there is with the cabinet system we have now.

I don't think it would work in York. We should not go down that route.

Updated: 10:31 Thursday, March 07, 2002