I know this isn't footy related but it is about how decisions could be made by our council in the future so it impacts on everything (e.g whether future schemes to regenerate the town get the go ahead).

The Council are consulting on the what option of local government we, the good people of Hartlepool, are going to have to decide upon in a referendum on the 15th November.

There are going to be Neighbourhood Forum meetings 19th July and infomation in the Mail. One other way is an online survey. See link below. I'd urge anyone with a view on this to complete the survey. It will only take a couple of minutes. Your view may just influence the councillors who will decide the option to be used.

As you will see the referendum will be a choice between keeping the directly elected mayor & cabinet and an undirectly elected leader & cabinet or a committee system. The difference will be that under the leader & cabinet model the public will know who is responsible for making the decisions as the leader and cabinet (up to 9 of the cllrs) will all have the portfolios and the rest of the cllrs will scrutinise their decisions. Under the committee system those portfolios will be run by committees and those committees will scrutinise each other. The key issue is about accountability and clear decision making.

IMHO neither option is as good as the current mayoral system but the leader and cabinet is better than the committee system.

Please complete the survey as it is rare for the public to be consulted and this is the most important decision for Hartlepool as whatever the referendum result is we'll have that for the next ten years.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HelpShapeYourCouncil2012

No comments?

Not a Hartlepool resident so can't do it. soz.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

I went on and voted for the leader and cabinet option if the mayoral position is voted out.

Wouldn't the leader and cabinet option simply leave the majority with unbridled power?
Or is that true for both the other options?

I think I have heard the Mayor say before that he is only one vote on an executive committee of six. Not sure how this would change in a leader and cabinet alternative.

The Leader would be elected by the other Councillors, and not the voters?

The Leader would be nominated angreed by the full council. In reality that wouuld be the leader of the majority party. The Leader would then select between 2 and 9 cllrs to form a cabinet. At the moment the mayor has 3 cabinet members plus himself all holding a portfolios. So 4 out of 34 cllrs (including the mayor) run the council. You know who's responsible for what, who leads the council and the remaining cllrs scrutinise the decisions of the cabinet and make recommendations on policy. Under a leader and cabinet the same happens.

In a committee system a cllr (probably from the majority party) chairs a committee made up of cllrs selected on the political balance of the council (e.g. 4 from the majority party, 1 each from the other parties) and they are responsible for making policy and decision for particular part of councill business. That could be for whole portfolio(e.g children and adult services) or for a part of it. Under this sysyem you could have any number of councillors, committees and they would scrutinise each other or have no formal system of scrutiny. The crucial difference is there is no clearly defined leader other than the leader of the majority party or the leader of the council. As a figured head of the town they will have only the mandate of their own ward voters and their party colleagues. The same goes for the leader and cabinet model. Neither system carries the authority or the profile on a directly elected mayor.

So just so I can get this clear, is the Referendum to replace the Mayoral system with one of these 2 options, or to decide which option is put up against the Mayoral system to vote on.

And of course all those would be from his own party. So I was right: unbridled power any way you look at it, just like it used to be.

The government has decided that it is too confusing to give people 3 choices so the consultation is to help cllrs decide which of the 2 options (leader & cabinet or committee system) then goes up against the mayoral system in the referendum.

In reality it is all smoke and mirrors as the majority of cllrs want a return to committee system and that's what the majority group will be recommending to the full council. In reality the referendum question will be anything other than Stuart Drummond as all parties and none have failed to put up a winning candidate so they are trying to unelect him by changing the system rather than defeating the man.

If effect yes, but at least with the cabinet system is that you have a proper system of scrutiny. The committee system which is what the majoirty of cllrs want is a return to the bad old days of unaccountable local government, which is what the mayoral or leader & cabinet system aimed to replace.

I have heard the Mayor say that he doesn't have the power to do a lot of things on more than one occasion. Would a leader and cabinet system mean that the leader had more power than a mayor would under the current system?

DEMOCRACY IS AN ILLUSION. yOU ONLY GET A CHOICE OF WHO YOU WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DO TO YOU AND WHEN IT WILL HAPPEN.

fucking caps lock!!!

Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for supper.

The leader and cabinet system wouldn't have anymore power. It depends on what the issue is as to what a council can do under any system.

^^^^This, as the new fashion goes. Like Mr Monty I can't vote either but I would go for any system rather than a return to the old days. It makes them accountable to no-one except themselves.

I hope this Erendum fella doesn`t ref any of our games, seems a tit