THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. THE REPORT IS AVAILABLE TO READ HERE.

There’s a lively ongoing national debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the directly elected mayor model of governance.  What benefits does the mayoral model deliver?  What are the drawbacks? Can the mayoral model of place-based leadership be improved?  Or should it be abandoned?

Researchers from Bristol’s two universities have studied these questions and a short policy report on their key findings will be presented by Professor Robin Hambleton, UWE and Dr Thom Oliver, UWE. They will be joined for a panel discussion by social and business entrepreneur Jaya Chakrabarti, MBE.

Sponsored by the Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, Faculty of Environment and Technology, UWE Bristol.

In association with/

Bristol Decides 2020

The Bristol Civic Leadership Project (BCLP) aims to enhance the quality of debate about civic leadership and local democracy not just in Bristol, but also nationally and internationally.  An active collaboration between the Universities of Bristol and the West of England, Bristol the research has involved surveys of citizens and civic leaders in 2012, 2014 and 2018.  The three researchers involved in carrying out this research are Professor Robin Hambleton, UWE, Dr David Sweeting, UoB, and Dr Thom Oliver, UWE.

In addition to the surveys the researchers have run workshops and focus groups with actors from inside and outside local government in Bristol and nationally, and have carried out numerous face-to-face interviews with various key actors.  It may be that this study is the only longitudinal study of the impacts of mayoral governance carried out anywhere in the world.

Research findings from this study have appeared in a variety of academic journals and the information on Bristol’s changing governance has appeared in two books:

Hambleton R. (2015) Leading the Inclusive City. Place-based innovation for a bounded planet. Bristol: Policy Press.

Sweeting D. (ed) (2017) Directly Elected Mayors in Urban Governance. Impact and practice. Bristol: Policy Press.  (Contains chapters by Hambleton, Sweeting and Oliver)

For more information please visit the project website.