Lambeth Council remains on course to radically change its decision-making processes thanks to an agreement between the Green and Liberal Democrat groups on the No Overall Control authority, which also involves the Lib Dems supporting a Green becoming the next council leader.
Wednesday night’s post-borough elections Annual Meeting was adjourned to enable proposals – the details of which aren’t yet known – for switching to a different governance model, to be formally adopted early next week and subsequently voted on.
The Lib Dems and Greens have argued that replacing the current Leader and Cabinet arrangement with a Committee System, a form that used to be commonplace in local government, would ensure that council decision-making better reflects the spread of political opinion expressed at the elections, allowing ward councillors to have greater input and improving transparency and public scrutiny.
However, a Labour spokesperson has described the Lambeth situation as “absolute chaos”, accused the other two groups of changing their minds about the prospective reforms in the course of the day and claiming they are now “panicking about what they can and can’t agree on by Monday”. Labour members also believe the rushed change would entail a major re-organisation and enlargement of council officer resources for which no preparations have been made and result in cuts to council services.
The Green Party won the largest number of seats at the 7 May full council elections, outscoring Labour by 29 to 26, with the Lib Dems winning eight, though the Green group has since been depleted by two resignations. By-elections will have to take place as result, though whatever their outcomes there will still be no party with a majority.
The adjournment, proposed at the Annual Meeting by a Lib Dem councillor and supported by the Greens, was a procedural device to enable an Extraordinary Meeting, instigated by the Greens, to take place before the Annual Meeting resumes. Changes to a local authority’s governance models can only be passed at its Annual Meetings and have to have been backed by councillors separately beforehand.
The Extraordinary Meeting is scheduled to take place next Monday, 1 June. The council’s calendar states that it will “consider a resolution to change the governance arrangements currently in operation from one of Leader and Cabinet to a Committee system” under the Local Government Act 2000.
The speed with which the Green and Lib Dem allies have moved to bring in the change is due to the new English Devolution and Communities Act 2026 making switching to a committee system illegal. The Act received royal assent on 29 April, but its provisions have not come into immediate effect.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Lib Dems said the Extraordinary Meeting would “make constitutional changes that would turn our principles into reality”. They claimed that the Leader and Cabinet model, used by a large majority of London boroughs, had led to Labour in Lambeth “imposing decisions in the face of local opinion”.
Of the 32 boroughs, only Richmond uses a Committee System. Barnet did so until 2023, when it moved to the Leader and Cabinet alternative following a 12-month transition period. Five boroughs have a directly elected Mayor and Cabinet system.
Labour was scathing about the Lib Dems and Greens, pointing out that the Lib Dems did not specifically advocate going back to a Committee System in their election manifesto and claiming that although the Greens had done so, they had at one point on Wednesday backed away from the idea then thought better of it when the Lib Dems threatened to withdraw their support for making Green group leader Martin Abrams leader of a minority administration.
The Annual Meeting, much of which was difficult to follow on the council’s webcast due to the sound disappearing or being of poor quality, elected a Green councillor as Lambeth’s new mayor. He went on to chair the meeting. A deputy mayor was elected from the Lib Dem group.
Most of the rest of the meeting was taken up with procedures and speeches relating to the adjournment. This meant a new leader was not appointed, leaving Labour’s Claire Holland in place for the time being. Abrams was elected to the council as a Labour candidate in 2022, but defected to the Greens last autumn, having been suspended by Labour in 2024 for refusing to vote against a Green councillor’s motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Prior to his defection he had reportedly been deselected by Labour.
Labour says it is not unsympathetic to the committee system in principle but it is understood that members of the group regard switching to it so quickly as irresponsible, complaining that no concrete proposals have yet been supplied and claiming that considerable extra financial costs would accrue due to more councillors needing to be briefed and guided by officers, which would have to be met from cuts to services.
Advocates of the Leader and Cabinet system consider it more efficient at making decisions and using resources. Lambeth’s finances are presently subject to medium term financial strategy devised to enable in-year savings and has lately been granted “exceptional financial support” by the government to help it balance its books.
Getting the governance change made before it becomes illegal also entails completing it within 21 working days of the full borough elections taking place.
It had been thought by some involved in behind-the-scenes discussions at the Town Hall that the deadline was 21 calendar days, raising the question of whether it was allowable for an Annual Meeting begun within 21 days to be adjourned and not resumed and completed until after that period. However, it is understood that Lambeth’s constitution excludes weekends and Bank Holidays when setting the deadline.
Photo: Lambeth Town Hall interior from Lambeth Council website.
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