Mansfield District

History

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, being a merger of the former municipal borough of Mansfield, combined with the nearby urban districts of Mansfield Woodhouse and Warsop.

Geography

Settlements in the district include Mansfield itself, where the council is based, together with Mansfield Woodhouse, Forest Town and parts of Pleasley, with Warsop and Meden Vale distanced and annexed by open countryside. The district is entirely unparished apart from Warsop, which retains a parish council.

Mansfield District Council

Unlike most English councils, Mansfield District Council is led by a directly elected mayor, following a campaign in 2002 by local businessman Stewart Rickersey to achieve a referendum to change the governance away from the traditional CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and elected Chairman-with-Cabinet, composed of councillors entitled Cabinet Members.

The replacement from 2003 was an MD (Managing Director) as Head of Paid Service with Directors, Heads of Service and Line Managers providing the council's day-to-day services, together with a Mayor (elected by the voting public) holding Executive powers and a cabinet composed of councillors entitled Portfolio Holders.

The Mayor of Mansfield is currently Kate Allsop who was returned at the scheduled elections in May 2015, following-on from her fellow Mansfield Independent Forum (MIF) political party colleague Tony Egginton, in-post since late 2003, a founding member of the Mansfield Independent Forum. Following the previous elections in 2011, MIF lost overall control having held majority seats from the 2003 and subsequent 2007 elections.

In time for the 2011 elections, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England recommended new wards and boundaries following a request for a review made by the mayor, resulting in 36 single-member wards.

At the 2011 elections, Mayor Egginton was again successful, but only by a very small margin of 67 votes based on AV – secondary voting – and after two recounts. The council initially comprised 26 Labour members and 10 Mansfield Independent Forum. No Liberal Democrats or Conservatives were elected.

One Labour member – elected for the Park Hall ward – died shortly after the election, with the subsequent by-election again returning a Labour councillor.

Two Labour members – elected to the Bull Farm and Pleasley Hill and Yeoman Hill wards – then changed their allegencies, creating their own Labour 2011 party. The Mayor assembled his Cabinet from Independents and Labour 2011, and, despite Labour holding the majority with 24 (from an initial 26) members, there was no Labour presence on the Mayor's Cabinet.

At the May, 2015 elections, Labour gained overall control, but the new Independent mayor again created a cabinet of Portfolio Holders from elected members who were not Labour. This overall control situation soon changed by a full council meeting that took place on 21 July 2015 with one Labour councillor, Nick Bennett, switching his political allegiance and, together with two UKIP members, joined with the Independent Forum to regain overall control from Labour.

The Mansfield District Council website reported the voting rights in July 2015 as follows:

Labour - 18 members Mansfield Independent Forum - 15 members (16 including the Mayor) Independent - 1 member UKIP - 2 members Total - 37 members

The Mansfield local newspaper reported that Nick Bennett had represented four parties since the start of his political career in 2007, including Conservative and UKIP. As of July, there were no Labour members on Mayor Allsop's cabinet, and at an extraordinary full-council meeting on 2 September, the Chairman of the Council and all of the Labour committee-lead positions were replaced by Independents.

It was also announced that the former Managing Director had departed "by mutual arrangement", with another Director fulfilling the role of interim Head of Paid Service, a legally-required position. Soon after, another Director, who was also the council's monitoring officer – again, a mandatory position – was stated to be leaving by the same "mutual agreement". In a later report relating to Mayor Kate Allsop, the local newspaper commented "In the weeks following the election, major decisions have been taken to axe two leading executives from Mansfield District Council".

In late October 2015, a further Labour member switched allegiance to Mansfield Independent Forum, tallying Labour 17, MIF Coalition 19.

Following a successful spell from late 2015 as interim Head of Paid Service when covering for the previous Managing Director, in 2016 Bev Smith was appointed Chief Executive Officer in what Mansfield Council described as "part of its senior management restructure".