The people of Thurrock are being asked what type of local government structure Thurrock Council should become.
Legislation says all councils must have one of two “executive arrangements” in place from early May 2011.
The two options are a directly elected Mayor and Cabinet, or Council Leader and Cabinet ― both senior posts, mayor and leader, will be for four years.
The directly elected Mayor option would see a borough-wide election to select an individual as Mayor, who would then appoint their own Cabinet of up to nine councillors, including a deputy.
The council would not be able to remove a directly elected Mayor from office.
Under this system, the title of civic Mayor, as Thurrock has at present, would disappear, although the council could appoint one councillor to carry out these duties under an alternative title.
The council Leader and Cabinet option is similar to how the council is run now. However the Leader would remain in office for four years instead of one year.
The Leader will be able to appoint up to nine other councillors including a Deputy Leader to form the Cabinet.
The council would be able to remove the Council Leader from office and a civic Mayor would continue to be appointed annually to carry out ceremonial and other duties.
At Annual Council on 19 May this year, members agreed to consult local people about the way forward.
Now Thurrock Council has launched a short, six week on-line consultation which will feedback the public’s initial thoughts and opinions to the council and cabinet. A more detailed consultation will be held later in the year.
Interesting and timely as Unitary Thurrock has been in situ for nearly 12 years and a review with input from residents / Councillors and National Government is needed. There has not been a lot of infrastructure regeneration and the majority of the time when both parties have been in power main policy seems to be about cutting Council Tax instead of thinking about regeneration which ultimately always costs. The current revolving yearly third of Council elections need to be changed to mirror National Government so that the Party with a majority (if of course first past the post is retained) can plan better. Both main parties in Thurrock though have failed to create viable policy manifestos (too much work/) and until they do, what ever is created as a Governing System is unlikely to change anything in Thurrock. Review welcome, but not sure the policy substance of local parties will change much. It will be interesting to know how much the consultants’ fees will be!