My experience as a local councillor has con­vinced me of the need for short-term, full-time mayors. I know, of course, that this is a controversial issue and that some long-term, part-time mayors will totally disagree with what I am stating. However, I believe that it is in the best interests of the residents of a locality to have mayors who can dedicate all their time to the local council which they lead and who do not remain in post for a very long time.

Let us start from the period of time a mayor serves his or her locality. Given that local council elections will now be held every five years, I personally believe that it is negative for a mayor to serve in post for more than two terms, i.e. a total of 10 years.

Yes, I know that there are mayors who have served for over 20 years and who are highly respected and viewed as being very capable and efficient.

However, there is also a negative side to all this. Human nature being what it is, it is more than obvious that the risk that such a person will, through the passage of time, come to dominate the local council he or she leads is a very real and worrying possibility.

Furthermore, it also eventually becomes a case of always having the same leadership ideas and approach for over a decade, perhaps even two. Variety, different solutions to problems, different approaches, innovation, are the first to go out of the window. Is this desirable? I would not think so.

Some people have argued that if the residents of a locality want to go on re-electing the same person as mayor, why should they be hindered from doing so, even after a long period of time has elapsed since the first election?

Short-term, full-time mayors will go a long way towards creating more efficient and innovative local councils

They further argue that members of Parliament can be re-elected again and again without a limit, so why should a fixed term of office apply in the case of mayors of local councils?

Then there is the case of those mayors who are employed with private companies. What happens if a person leaves his or her job to become a full-time mayor for only a fixed period of time? Will he or she have to find a new job afterwards?

Also mentioned is the case of a full-time mayor who does not get re-elected. What happens then?

These are all good and pertinent questions. Regarding the case of members of Parliament, I believe that the situation is not really the same because assertive mayors tend to dominate their locality in a way that a member of Parliament never can.

Also, a mayor can be very popular but not so effective and yet manage to get re-elected, time after time, for various reasons. A good example is that of general practitioners whose medical profession helps them to form personal and very friendly relationships with many families and which are then translated into personal votes irrespective of a person’s performance as mayor.

Regarding the question of employment in the private sector, I have a simple answer: such people should not accept the post of mayor should they get the highest number of votes and should they not come to some kind of agreement with their employer about their particular situation. Am I being unfair in what Iam suggesting? No, I think that I am being realistic.

With the amount of work that a mayor has to carry out and with the load of responsibilities on his/her shoulders, it is becoming near to impossible to hold down a full-time job in addition to the duties of mayor of a local council. The argument that I am making is that if we want to have much more efficient leaders of local councils, then we need full-time mayors.

Furthermore, if we want to have innovation and fresh ideas in our local councils and if we want to avoid a concentration of power in a single person’s hands over a long period of time, then mayors should not serve for more than two terms, i.e. not more than10 years.

Some people will point out that I have left executive secretaries out of the argument and that these are crucial people in any local council. This is true, but remember that executive secretaries are technocrats and the real power on a local basis lies with the mayor.

Even here, I believe that executive secretaries should be rotated between local councils after having served for a number of years with a particular council. Indeed, one of the most potentially dangerous combinations is to have the same mayor and the same executive secretary in a local council for a long period of time.

I know that some people will be incensed by what I have suggested today but I sincerely believe that short-term, full-time mayors will go a long way towards creating more efficient and innovative local councils.

Furthermore, research commissioned by the Local Councils Association indicates that public opinion is in favour of short-term, full-time mayors.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.