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On Monday night, 1 June, 24 long days after the borough elections, Martin Abrams became the new leader of Lambeth Council, the first Green Party councillor to secure the role. His elevation to the head of a minority administration followed intense negotiations with the Liberal Democrat group which, though smaller in number than both its Green and Labour counterparts, holds the balance of power between the two.

Much of the discussion was not about who had the strongest case for leading the council: the Lib Dems were clear that although the Greens had fallen short of a majority and have already lost two of their original 29 councillors to resignations – by-elections to replace them will follow later this month – they were still the largest party with 27 members compared with Labour’s 26 and the Lib Dems’ eight, and were therefore are entitled to take the helm.

Rather, it centred on the conditions the Lib Dems would demand were met in return for enabling a Green-led council to happen. These concerned the very fundamentals of how the council takes decisions and the distribution of power and responsibility among its 63 elected members. That matter too was decided on Monday night. How it happened is quite a tale.

Let’s begin with Lambeth Greens’ manifesto which, on page 23, said that one of its “aims” was to:

“Move Lambeth from the cabinet model to the committee model, giving councillors and residents more accountability and collective power.”

Dumping one local government decision-making structure (more formally known as “executive arrangements“) for a completely different one is a major undertaking. There are specific rules to follow and considerable re-organisations of local authority bureaucracy – its “democratic services” – are entailed.

On top of that, changing from the Leader and Cabinet model (to give it its full title) to the Committee System model, which is what the Greens had in mind, has recently become legally problematic because of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act. One of the Act’s objectives is to completely do away with the Committee System, which is currently used by very few local authorities in England and by only one in London (Richmond).

As for the Lib Dems, they had a manifesto pledge of their own about local decision-making. This was a much more general promise to “ensure residents shape decisions that affect them”, including by ending what it called a “‘Town Hall knows best’ culture”. However, it enabled discussion with the Greens on the common ground of seeking to move Lambeth away from Leader and Cabinet governance to something both parties regarded as better for democracy, transparency and scrutiny.

Supporters of the Leader and Cabinet arrangement believe it leads to stronger, speedier and more decisive local government. Opponents think it concentrates too much power at the top, marginalises most councillors and excludes residents. The Lib Dems and the Greens moved forward together on the basis of their shared opposition, but there were lots of issues to consider.

Would moving to a Committee System even be legal? Although it had received royal assent on 29 April, the provisions of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act had not yet come into effect. And although th Act sought to replace the few remaining Committee Systems with Leader and Cabinet set-ups, certain restraints had been introduced when the legislation passed through the House of Lords.

Summarising the new Act, the UK Constitutional Law Association has explained that if a Committee System became a local authority’s governance arrangement “by virtue of a resolution” it would be “protected” for five years. A local government resolution is an official statement by that authority of its position on an issue. And the Local Government Act 2000 (Section 9KC) states that “a resolution of a local authority is required in order for the authority to make a change in governance arrangements”.

This meant that any governance arrangement change in Lambeth could not be adopted by the council until the necessary resolution had been made. Furthermore, the making of that resolution would have to take place both in time for the governance change it referred to be voted on at the council’s Annual Meeting and before the provisions of new Act came into effect. There was very little time available and the Annual Meeting was already scheduled for 27 May.

A procedural ploy was devised to enable the calendar choreography. Legal advice was that there were risks with this, but the Lib Dems thought these manageable. A quintet of Green councillors deployed their right to have an Extraordinary Meeting held at which the necessary resolution could be made. This was set for 1 June. And to ensure that councillors could vote on the resolution at this year’s Annual Meeting – next year’s would, of course, be far too late – the Greens and Lib Dems saw to it that although the Annual Meeting would begin, as required, on 27 May, it would be adjourned and not completed until after – indeed, directly after – the Extraordinary Meeting had taken place.

That was the plan for switching Lambeth Council to a Committee System just before doing so became illegal, and for retaining it for as long a the law allowed. But the the plan never came to fruition. That was because the Greens had second thoughts. The Extraordinary Meeting was declared closed within 30 seconds of beginning because, in the words of the borough’s ceremonial mayor (pictured) who chaired the meeting, “the five councillors who requisitioned the meeting have since withdrawn their request”. According to some interested parties, the decision to do this had been made several days earlier.

Exactly why the Greens changed their minds about adopting the Committee System is hard to know. In a press release, they said “the move became untenable due to central’s government’s move to effectively ban the model” but there has been no response to my request for elaboration. Sources in the other party groups variously speculate that the legal advice had “spooked” the Greens or, more cynically, that the prospect of leading the council had caused them to take a slightly warmer view of the Leader and Cabinet arrangement.

Whatever the reason or reasons, when the Annual Meeting resumed on Monday evening the Greens brought forward a different idea for changing how council’s decisions would be made. This took the form of an emergency motion to tweak the council’s constitution. Rather than seeking a complete change of governance model, they proposed instead an adjustment of the Leader and Cabinet arrangement to create what they later called “a hybrid Cabinet Committee model under the existing system”.

What, exactly, is that? A 2020 paper from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny says this:

“A hybrid model is one that combines the features of more than one governance model. So there are some councils operating under the leader/cabinet model where scrutiny committees carry out detailed debate and discussion on forthcoming Cabinet decisions, and where Cabinet essentially rubber stamps what they decide.”

Under this set-up, council committees, though legally their role is limited to scrutiny, effectively act as de facto decision-making bodies. So, was the hybrid route a different way of achieving essentially the same thing as a Committee System, or was it, as both the Lib Dems and the Labour group have said, a Green U-turn made even before Abrams had been appointed council leader? If not a U-turn, then a timorous Green fudge?

The Greens, naturally, protest otherwise. And the “hybrid” system does seem to meet two of what the Lib Dems call the “three key tests” they set for the Greens to pass before the would enable them to form an administration: changing the council’s constitution “so that opposition parties can properly scrutinise and influence council decisions” and involving “local councillors more in decisions impacting on their ward”. (The third, significantly, given the Greens’ anti-establishment aspirations, was that they “commit to a legal, balanced budget”).

At the resumed Annual Meeting, the Lib Dems also amended the Green motion in ways they say will bring decisions back to the council if the leader and his cabinet members “depart from the recommendations of committees” and also ensure that committee chairs are elected by the full council, rather than being picked by the leader and cabinet. The amended motion was passed with Labour backing.

Will the new way work? Labour’s view of the original plan was that it would create cost and confusion, and in her valedictory speech outgoing council leader Claire Holland accused the Greens of causing “chaos”. Certainly, the hybrid model, which will take some time to put in place and adjust to, is being introduced at very short notice.

Another possible problem is raised in that Centre for Governance and Scrutiny paper. It argues that hybrid governance forms “can be made to work” but also that although “structures are important…culture – how people are predisposed to behave and think, depending on their roles – is arguably more critical”. Will Lambeth’s new Green leader and cabinet behave and think in the way the hybrid model supposes? What if they don’t?

All of that is for the future and judgements will be made over time. That said, potential for disruption and dysfunction in the way Lambeth works surely already exists, what with a tyro minority administration finding its feet and major changes in the way the council functions to be brought in.

Then there are those two by-elections to consider, both of them set for 9 July. Should Labour win them both – perhaps unlikely, but not impossible – it will replace the Greens as the largest party. Would that prompt a Lib Dem re-think? The group does not consider itself to have entered a coalition with the Greens. What might happen if and when the Lib Dems decide the Greens have begun failing one or more of their “key tests”? Lambeth Council is one to keep on watching.

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