ON NOVEMBER 5, Hillingdon Council passed a resolution to adopt a revised version of the leader and cabinet executive model of governance. Councillors rejected the alternatives of having a directly elected mayor or putting the matter to a referendum.

They were required to make a choice between the three options under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The decision has to be ratified at a specially convened council meeting on December 10.

During the brief and poorly publicised consultation process, the council received 123 responses. For every one in favour of the new style leader and cabinet model, three were in favour of an elected mayor and six were in favour of a referendum.

During the debate, Councillor Ray Puddifoot argued that, as only 38 people had favoured having a directly elected mayor, the council need not take this option seriously.

It is not surprising that so few people responded to the council's request for comments. It was made in a half page article in the September issue of Hillingdon People magazine. No mention of the article was made on the front cover, in the list of contents or in the welcome editorial from Mr Puddifoot. It made no mention of the referendum option.

Comments, it said, had to be in by the end of the month. No press release was sent out, no leaflets produced and no emails sent to the large number of residents on the council's database.

The residents' associations and chambers of commerce were not consulted. Even the councillors were not directly informed.

The consultation process could have been launched as early as November 2007 and we could have been given, say, 18 months to research, discuss and debate the relative merits of the two models of governance. If there was no consensus, a referendum could have been held to decide the matter.

One must ask why the council wanted to suppress, delay and compress the consultation process and exclude any reference to the referendum option. Were cabinet members and senior officers worried that a directly elected mayor might dispense with their services? Were ward councillors concerned that the electorate might choose a non-party politician as mayor?

This would disrupt the cosy system of local party politics, in which councillors can rely on almost automatic re-election via the party ticket.

Not surprisingly, both the Conservative and Labour councillors voted en bloc for the resolution. Sadly the same process is being repeated right across London.

People 0 Establishment 1.

PETER SILVERMAN hillingdon-watch.org.uk

Via email