Local Government Act 2000

The Local Government Act 2000 is a UK law that changed how local governments in England and Wales work. It aimed to:

• Give local councils more power to improve their local economy, society, and environment.
• Make councils switch from using committees to having a leader (like a mayor) and a cabinet to make decisions. People could vote for the mayor in some areas.
• Separate the roles in councils, so some councillors check the work of the leaders.
• Create rules for how councillors should behave, with a national group to handle complaints.
• Make councils publish how they work.^[1]

One big change was letting areas have directly elected mayors. By 2017, most local referenda on this idea failed, and only a few areas chose to have one. Out of 53 referenda only 16 resulted in a directly elected mayor.^[2] Other mayors in the UK are mostly for ceremonial purposes. Directly elected mayors are like older types of powerful mayors in Britain and some other European countries.^[3]