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Central government has launched a last-ditch attempt to push councils into having directly-elected mayors. Despite lacklustre enthusiasm for the mayoral system within local government, communities secretary, Hazel Blears, has launched new plans to make it easier for the public to force a referendum on the local political leadership. The plans, out for consultation this week, will offer communities three ways to trigger a referendum. These include cutting the trigger for a referendum from 5% of the population to 2%, or a set number of people. Ms Blears has also put forward plans to allow online petitions and to cut the time between referendums from 10 years to four. Ms Blears said: ‘I believe local people know what is best for their area so they must have the power to decide how it is governed. It is right that we make it easier for them to decide which form of council leadership is right for them.' Under new duties on councils, they must respond to petitions, even when the required signature threshold has not been reached. As well as making it easier to trigger a mayoral referendum, the new plans would also let councils get rid of a directly-elected mayor in favour of a council leader – as happened recently in Stoke on Trent City Council. Previous attempts to push through mayoral system have led to just a handful of councils shifting to the system. In the more recent attempts, the Government has offered directly-elected mayors power over the policing services – without the need for a separate directly-elected policing representative. Three plans to help the communities trigger a referendum: lowering the petition threshold from 5% of the electorate down to 2%, or a set number of signatures allowing online petitioning, cutting the time between referendum votes from ten years to four

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WHITEHALL

Directly-elected mayors push

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