Council to debate position of Mayor

Mayoral referendum header

The next meeting of Tower Hamlets Council is on Weds 18th Nov 2020. Under Other Business item 10.1 Governance Model Referendum is all about what type of Mayor we should have.

The Background on page three of the Governance Model Referendum document says that the Council has operated the Mayor and Cabinet model of governance since May 2010. It can only be changed after 10 years from that date, and must be decided by another referendum.

The document lists different Governance Models available to councils. The council has to decide if it wishes to make changes and hold a referendum. If it want to hold one, the alternatives on offer are a choice between: the leader and cabinet model of executive, or the committee model of governance. Further down the document in the legal section i found the two ideas of what each ballot paper might look like.

Option 1 for Tower Hamlets Council to consider Nov 2020
Option 2 for Tower Hamlets Council to consider Nov 2020

If the council elects for no change then we’ll have an all-powerful Mayor for another 10 years.

There are two different ePetitions on the Council website:

  1. Hold a referendum on 6th May 2021 to replace the ‘Directly Elected Mayor and a cabinet’ system by a ‘Leader and cabinet’ system. This petition closes on 30th November.
  2. Petition to hold a referendum in Tower Hamlets to replace the ‘Directly Elected Mayor’ system after an informed debate so that residents and not just politicians have a say on the structure of how we should make decisions that affect us all. This one closes on 9th December. I seems to be a duplicate of one on Change.org.

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