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The Mayor and Executive

How the Mayor makes decisions

The Mayor is responsible for all executive decisions and provides clearly focused and strategic leadership. Executive decisions are all decisions which by law are not reserved to the Council or its committees. He must operate within the policy and budgetary framework agreed by the Council, and the constitution.

Of course, the Mayor cannot practically take every decision so he delegates most of his decision making to officers.

What is the Executive?

The Mayor must appoint a cabinet of between two and nine members, picked from the elected councillors. The Executive is made up of the Mayor and Cabinet and when it meets collectively they are known as the Cabinet.

Each cabinet member is in charge of a portfolio, rather like a Government minister. The portfolios are usually based on departments providing specific services such as housing, education and social services, or that cut across these areas, such as social inclusion, customer services and regeneration (see cabinet/mayoral advisers’ portfolios). The Mayor can, if he wishes, give these councillors decision making powers (see scheme of delegation). At present, however, the role of the cabinet is advisory.

By law the Mayor must appoint a Deputy Mayor from amongst the cabinet. However, there is no defined role for him/her unless the Mayor dies or is incapacitated. Of course, the Mayor can go on holiday and leave specific authority to the Deputy Mayor to act in his/her place. The Deputy Mayor is Councillor June Leitch.

What’s the role of the Mayoral Advisers?

In addition to Cabinet members, the Mayor has appointed mayoral advisers. These are other Councillors who may be asked to advise the Mayor on a particular issue, service or project, but they are not part of the executive. They cannot have delegated authority to take decisions on behalf of the Mayor.

See Cabinet/Mayoral Advisers for the details of the councillors who have been appointed as cabinet members or mayoral advisers, together with their portfolios.

Mayor’s Scheme of Delegation

The Mayor announces his/her scheme of delegation at the Annual Meeting. In the scheme of delegation, the Mayor sets out who will make executive decisions; (See Mayoral Scheme of Delegation & Decision for the current scheme) . The Mayor has decided to retain all executive powers except those delegated to officers. He will take decisions in one of two ways:

• Alone at Mayoral Proceedings sometimes in consultation with an individual cabinet member or mayoral adviser or
• At a cabinet meeting so that he can consult all the cabinet members and mayoral advisers before he takes the decision.

Types of decisions made by the Mayor

The Mayor will make 2 types of executive decisions, known as key and non-key decisions

• Key decisions: Key decisions are decisions of the Executive which either result in the Council incurring expenditure or making savings of more than £½million; or which are significant in terms of the effects on two or more wards. Some key decisions are delegated to officers. All key decisions must be published in the Forward Plan, which comes out every month and covers the next 4-month period. (see key decisions and Mayor’s forward plan.)

• Non-key decisions: These are decisions which may be taken by the Mayor or by officers on behalf of the Executive. The vast majority of Council decisions fall into this category and they are taken routinely by officers within the policies laid down by Members.

The Mayor following consultation with cabinet members and mayoral advisers at a cabinet meeting will recommend the budget and key policy proposals to full Council. This is known as the ‘policy and budgetary framework’.