Bristol is tomorrow (May 5) going to the polls.
Locals will be able to vote to decide whether to scrap the mayoral system after opposition councillors had a victory in City Hall in December 2021. A majority of elected members of Bristol City Council backed a motion to hold a legally-binding second referendum to decide how the council should be run from 2024 onwards.
The vote will take place 10 years after the first referendum, which created the post of Mayor of Bristol in 2012. The referendum in May 2022 will offer Bristolians the choice of keeping an elected mayor or going back to the committee system of governance, which was in place prior to 2000.
Read more: What the city's political parties are saying about the Bristol Mayor Referendum
In recent weeks, we have been reporting on experts' opinions ahead of the Mayoral Referendum in May. An expert said that the referendum could be the start of the conversation, rather than the end, while another one explained what council leadership was like in the city prior to the elected mayor model being introduced.
The council has also published some information on its website about how the committee model of governance operates. It states: "Should the outcome of the Referendum support the option to operate a Committee model of governance, the Authority would adopt a new Constitution detailing amongst other matters the functions of Full Council, the Committee Structure of the Authority, the Terms of Reference of the Committees, and the Officer Scheme of Delegation.
"The Full Council of 70 councillors would be the decision-making body for the discharge of all the Council’s functions except for those functions that are required by law to be delegated to committees or individual officers. Full Council is required by law to make certain decisions itself but will mainly delegate its powers to committees of councillors or to officers."
The document states that, in that case, full council would make decisions such as the approval of the annual budget and the setting of council tax, the approval of key governance policies and decisions and also the approval or adoption of a plan for the control of the authority's borrowing, among others. It would also appoint several roles including the leader and deputy leader of the council, as well as the the mayor and deputy mayor.
It said: "The Authority would establish a number of committees with responsibility for major policy/service areas, for example, Finance and Performance, Adult Social Care, Education, Children’s Services, Transport, Environment and Housing. The detailed structure of policy/service committees will be agreed as part of the transitional arrangements.
"The Authority would also establish a number of regulatory committees, with responsibility for matters such as planning, licensing, audit and human resources. The detailed structure of regulatory committees will be agreed as part of the transitional arrangements."
It also states that the change of governance would take effect from May 5, 2024.
"A further report will be presented to Full Council setting out in detail the proposed transitional arrangements for the change in the Authority’s governance. This will include a timetable for the change and the matters that need to be agreed to implement a change in the Authority’s governance arrangements," it adds.
