England’s metro mayors — give them more powers
Might metro mayors solve the challenge of regional growth in the UK?
How to solve the challenge of regional growth in the UK; how to level up and heal the North-South divide. These challenges have concentrated the minds of every British government for at least the past 30 years.
One area of real promise which may address these decades-long challenges has been the election of ‘metro mayors’. Metro mayors and are directly elected by citizens in their area and are chairs of their area's combined authority. The mayor, in partnership with the combined authority, exercises the powers and functions devolved from Government, set out in the local area's devolution deal.
First elected outside London in 2017, metro mayors have become something of a success story in Britain’s otherwise patchy approach to regional growth. Residents across ten metro regions in England are soon to vote for their local mayor. Metro mayors and are directly elected by citizens in their area, and are chairs of their area's combined authority. The mayor, in partnership with the combined authority, exercises the powers and functions devolved from Government, set out in the local area's devolution deal.
In a recent article that has appeared in the FT (‘England’s promising experiment with metro mayors’, FT View, April 9) it is acknowledged that most mayors are now more recognisable than local authority leaders and MPs, according a survey by the Centre for Cities. Those living in mayoralties also support greater decision-making powers for their mayors. Some leaders have already begun overseeing economic improvements too; from developing tram networks and bus systems, to addressing skill shortages.
In response the FT’s article, London Business School’s Dr John Mullins says in a letter to the FT that while it may be premature to, as the article has suggested, “double down” on the metro mayor experiment, mayors such as Andy Burnham (Greater Manchester) and Andy Street (West Midlands) have successfully blazed a trail in terms of their personal success, and promotion of their roles as catalysts for innovation and investment.
John Mullins adds, “Other mayors have been similarly effective, such as Steve Rotheram who has backed a 5G broadband network for the Liverpool City region. If there is a weakness in the UK’s present approach then perhaps it does not go far enough. The strong executive power of US city mayors means that they are able to address the economic paralysis and failure that federal government sometimes fails to address. Greater powers for these mayors would add considerable force to the government’s pledge to “extend, deepen and simplify” devolution to England’s cities.”
An award-winning teacher and scholar and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in entrepreneurship, John Mullins brings to his teaching and research 20 years’ executive experience in high-growth retailing firms, including two ventures he founded and one he took public.
John’s newest book, Break the Rules! The Six Counter-Conventional Mindsets of Entrepreneurs That Can Help Anyone Change the World (Hoboken: Wiley 2023), identifies what makes entrepreneurs “entrepreneurial” and provides a roadmap for how anyone can adopt and master these mindsets to challenge assumptions, overcome obstacles, mitigate risk, and perhaps change the world.
In a recent TED Talk which has attracted close to 700 views, John drew on two decades of research into what makes entrepreneurs ‘entrepreneurs’, and how they differ from the rest of us.
