A Mayoral Referendum for Sutton??

What will be the impact on Sutton when this is published in the Autumn. A few early thoughts:

1. As an "Excellent" Council we may be offered more powers. Do we have a list of what we would like. I doubt it?

2. If we adopted an elected Mayor, we might get even more powers (surprised the Tories haven't warmed to this locally as they might calculate they could win an elected Mayoralty, even if the majority of Councillors stayed Lib Dem). If Sutton remains a two party system and the Libd Dems insist on a single party cabinet, a much wider range of people might start to argue for this, as amazingly most elected Mayors seem to open up their cabinets to a much wider range of civic groups. It only needs about 7,500 Sutton electors to sign a petition for a referendum?

3. There will be "Neighbourhood Power of Initiative". Why doesn't the Council develop devolved budgets now in advance and get our scheme listed as a pilot. The big problem I suspect is that Environmental Services Department is still resisting this. Perhaps Lib Dems and Tories could agree some joint approach to force the issue through. They would have my support if they did.

4. The big issue will be whether local government finance is addressed. I suspect there may be some extra new charges and Education will be "nationalised" (which is already the reality of ring-fencing), but I still don't currently see anything radical. I suspect however the Lib Dems nationally may move away from Local Income Tax to a range of smaller green taxes.