8: Conclusion

What conclusions may now be drawn about the leadership of English local government and the place of directly elected mayors within it?

The revision of organisational structures – whether through major local government reorganisation or incremental change – does not deliver leadership. Human agency rather than formal structure is required for leadership. Structures may however provide a promising or an unpromising basis for the exercise of leadership. The persistent difficulty is that the structures of British local government, rooted in the bureaucratic tradition – for good reasons of public accountability and transparency in the use of public funds – remain an unpromising basis for local leadership. We have seen in our discussion that individuals may from time to time break through the constraints of local structures and may act as leaders, but this may not in itself have positive results. Local structures should instead act as enabling vehicles for local leadership, based in public endorsement and democratic legitimacy, and with a scope for freedom of action limited by formal accountability. At its best, mayoral oversight of a local or sub-national area may serve to focus attention upon the needs and identity of the place in question and may assist in the direction of resources to that area. Yet, we see little evidence that elected mayors, whether at individual council or Combined Authority levels, are acting as local leaders in the sense outlined by theorists of leadership (e.g., Joyce, 2012) notwithstanding the success of particular initiatives by individual mayors.