Bedford Borough Council is changing its constitution to align with legal advice that says a mayoral decision cannot be overruled at a Full Council meeting – even if a majority of councillors oppose it.
Instead, councillors can only refer a called-in decision back to the Executive for reconsideration, but the mayor retains the final say.
“I think that’s hugely concerning for all sorts of reasons,” said cllr Henry Vann (Lib Dem, De Parys), chair of the General Purposes Committee, as he outlined the impact of these changes during last night’s meeting (Tuesday).
“Legal counsel’s advice is that the law does not enable full council to overrule the decision of an elected mayor,” he said.
“Full council can only choose to do what a scrutiny committee can do, which is refer a decision that’s been called in back to the executive. That is the legal position, so we have to change our constitution to match the law.”
A council call-in procedure allows members of a council to request a reconsideration of a decision that has been made but not yet implemented.
“Huge amount of power”
Cllr Vann added: “I would hope that if a decision went to full council and received a majority vote against a decision, I would hope that any elected mayor would consider that really carefully.
“The law puts a huge amount of power in the hands of one person and a democratic decision to the contrary of that person’s decision can be essentially ignored.”
Cllr Graeme Coombes (Wixams and Wilstead), the leader of the Conservative Group said the law must always prevail.
“The constitution must comply with the law, the law trumps the constitution,” he said.
“You’re right, it does put an awful lot of power in one person’s hands and I tend to agree with you, but we are where we are.
“We can blame Tony Blair for that. He is the one who came up with these elected mayors.”
Cllr Vann added, “I would point out that since Tony Blair’s introduction of elected mayors, the electoral system has also changed.”
The proposed amendments to the constitution will now go to Full Council for approval.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
