Woking rejects elected mayor and all ups

At the Full Council meeting on Thursday 25 February Woking Council voted to have a 'strong leader' rather than an elected Mayor and to continue the process of election by thirds to Woking Council.

As I set out in an earlier post the government required WBC to decide whether to directly elect a Mayor (as in London) or to have a 'strong leader' and cabinet. The second option, as chosen by WBC this week, is similar to the current structure. Woking Council is run by an Executive committee, usually headed by the Leader of the largest political group on the Council. The leader and executive are chosen annually, usually by members of the largest political party. The new 'strong leader' model sees a leader elected by the whole Council for a four year term (or until their term of office ends). This leader can be removed by a vote of the Council. The leader chooses their cabinet and allocates responsibilities within that cabinet.

Woking did have an executive of 7 members. This has been cut down to 5 members by the Conservatives in recent years (some have said, rather unkindly, because they couldn't find 7). It will be interesting to see the new cabinet structure. Will there be any move to do a 'Gordon' and appoint members from outside of the largest party I wonder?

The election schedule is unchanged. There will continue to be elections to WBC in three years out of four. In the fourth year there are elections to Surrey County Council. I agree with the retention of election by thirds. This method enables residents to have at least some control over how its Council is run. A four-yearly election cycle gives the council carte blanche to make unpopular decisions or severe cuts in year one in the hope it will be forgotten over the next three years.

There are some interesting indicators of what might happen if elections were 'all up'. A certain Mr Armitage got himself re-elected in 2003 then announced plans to build on Brewery Road car park. The Conservative party became the largest party in 2007 when they 'bribed' the population with the promise of a 0% Council Tax rise in the following year. In 2008 there was no increase, as promised, but in 2009 with County rather than Borough elections the increase was a whopping 4.8%.