Confused over Government - who really has control?

Malden And Coombe Community Pages explain the facts.

Who runs the council?

With so many tiers of government it is becoming very difficult for residents to know who is running what.

In Kingston upon Thames the structure is as follows:

Select to find out about:

Council Executive:

The Mayor, Deputy Mayor and back bench Councillors:

Neighbourhoods:

Parliament (Westminster):

London Assembly:

Europe (Brussels):

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Executive: Since May 2002 the council executive is Liberal Democrat. From 1998 - May 2002, the executive was all Conservative and was called The Cabinet.

There are 7 Executive members.  

• Leader of The Council (Cllr Roger Hayes)

• Environment (Cllr Tricia Bamford)

• Young People and Life Long learning (Cllr Rev Martin Blakeborough)

• Health and Community (Cllr Rolson Davies)

• Resources and Strategic Partnerships (Cllr Derek Osbourne)

• Best Value Performance Management (Cllr Ian Reid)

• Participation and Communication (Cllr Mary Reid)

The only other member of the council with main strategic responsibility being a Neighbourhood chair.  However these are checked by councillors on Overview panels (or scruitany panels) which are chaired by opposition councillors and on which Executive members are not allowed to sit.  Overview panel chairs also get paid an allowance of £10,000 a year, while the leaders and deputy leaders of each of the political groups also get paid an additional responsibility allowance.  The leader of the Council (usually the leader of the largest party) can in law be paid £30,000 or more. 

All councillor rates of pay are now linked to a civil servant grade for judging future pay increases.

The cabinet is responsible for setting council policy and for delegating budgets to Neighborhoods and other strategic services (e.g. Education).  Neighbourhood chairs use their experience to control their set budget.

The executive is made up of the main controlling party in Kingston.

The head of the council is called the Leader of the Council (not the Mayor).  The chief civil servant on the council is the Chief Executive.  

The Mayor does not head the Council in Kingston, although in some areas the Leader of the Council and the Mayor have had their roles merged.  In Kingston the Mayoral team is used to chair full council (not cabinet or other strategic committees) and to support the boroughs charity work.  It is normal over a 4 year term for the controlling party to hold the Mayoral position for two of the four years and for each of the other two parties to hold it in turn for each of the other two years.

Councils receive a grant from Central Government.  In Kingston this was reduced when a then Conservative Council claimed they could run the council on less at a time leading up to an election.  Then followed a period when they would not join an all-party delegation asking for more from Government claiming they could do the job on less. Now year back under  Conservative control the council tax has steadily crept up and over a £1,000 a year for the first time (at band D) under the previous Conservative administration in Aril 2002.  

It is widely accepted that the impact of the four years (1998 - 2002 under the then Conservative administration) which saw council tax rise by almost 50% (at band D) between 1998 and 2002 under the then Conservative Administration.  

Because of the low level of  preparation for a number of major cost increases, under the Conservative 1998 - 2002 administration, it is likely that this rise in tax will stay for a long time - future council executives will still be picking up the tab from the past Conservative one.

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All councillors receive a basic allowance.  This is £5,000 a year in Kingston, although an allowance for back bench councillors of of up to £9,000 a year is permitted in law (2002 figures).  

The allowance is for loss of earning, phone calls, some postage, stationary and traveling expenses.  In addition to their allowance, they receive internet access, a basic answer phone, a filling cabinet and a parking permit and a ream of paper.  

Because the allowance counts as income, many residents are still excluded from standing for council due to benefit traps.  Parties like the Liberal Democrats believe that standing for council should be open to all residents.  In some parts of London councillors who are on benefits have to use their entitled benefits to subsidise their work as a councillor.

The Deputy Mayor receives no additional allowance and the Mayor receives a special allowance to carry out his mayoral duties.  Often the Mayor will transfer an amount of his allowance to the Deputy Mayor as appropriate to assist the Deputy Mayor in supporting the Mayor.  It is not uncommon for the Mayor to also transfer some of his allowance to the charity fund that his team is supporting during his year of office.  The team will through the year raise a considerable amount of money for local charities.  You can find out more on the Mayor here: Find out about the Mayor

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Neighborhoods use their local allocation of money from the executive to make strategic decisions locally.  This includes moderate planning applications, road and street repairs and can call in any decision that affects them locally as an area.  Neighborhood chairs are paid £10,000 for their responsibility above the basic allowance.  Because of the amount of work involved many neighborhoods now have co-chairs and the allowance is split among 2 councillors.

There are 4 Neighborhoods, made up of the councillors in that locality.  The local party with the most councillors chair the committee - if the split is even then the decisions are made by the party with the most councillors in attendance on the day and if a draw is declared, then the casting vote is made by the Neighbourhood Chair.  In a split Neighbourhood the chair is appointed by the majority decision of the full Kingston Council.

The 4 Neighbourhoods are:

South of the Borough (Chessington Hook & Malden Rushet, Chessington South and Tolworth and Hook Rise) - 9 Liberal Democrat (including 2 co-chairs) Councillors.

Kingston Town (Canbury, Grove, Norbiton and Tudor) -  6 Liberal Democrats (including the chair), 3 Labour and 3 Conservative Councillors.

Maldens and Coombe (Beverley, Coombe Hill, Coombe Vale, Old Malden and St James  wards) - 9 Liberal Democrats (including 2 co-chairs) and 6 Conservatives Councillors.  

In the Maldens and Coombe Neighbourhood, two wards are split between parties.  The St James Ward has 2 Conservatives and 1 Liberal Democrat Councillor, while Coombe Vale ward has 1 Conservative and 2 Liberal Democrat Councillors.  The balance and control of the neighbourhood was thus actually decided by only 51 votes.

Surbiton (Alexander, Berrylands, St Marks and Surbiton Hill) -  6 Liberal Democrats (including the chair) and 6 Conservatives 

In addition to these strategic committees there are scrutiny committees chaired by opposition councillors who can question the Cabinet Secretary on key issues such as Education, Social Services, Environment, etc.  Liberal Democrats when in opposition pressed for greater rights to question executive members (or as were called Cabinet members) and greater transparency of the decision making process.  Executive members are not allowed to serve on scrutiny panels, however their party colleagues can.  Scrutiny panels have their seats divided to be proportional to the total council makeup - unlike the Cabinet and are chaired by opposition councillors.

Kingston MPs 

election results Kingston Decides

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Our Parliament is controlled by The Labor party.  You can check out the Westminster web page through our site links page.  Like the council executive, the parliamentary cabinet is all one party - in this case Labour.  The leader of the government is the Prime Minister.

Money collected for the council business rates goes to the Parliamentary  Treasury (controlled by the parliamentary cabinet).  In addition funds collected from courts for fines can go to the Treasury.  For instance a council may enforce certain offences, however they would not gain any revenue from enforcement action.  This is an issue that Liberal Democrats are attempting to have changed.

Government decides how much money councils are allocated.  Councils main income does not come from council tax, but central government (Westminster).  Governments can also set an indication as to how much councils should be spending.

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Part of the council tax collected goes to the Greater London Assembly, who can use this to fund strategic London wide policies.

GLA members (GLAMs) can take cases to the London Assembly and this is very useful for issues that cross London borough constituencies.  You can find out more about the London Assembly through our site Links page.

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