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Philosophers and political scientists have a long history of dealing with the difficult puzzle of leadership, and how it is to be distinguished from management and administration. The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of whether the innovative role of elected executive mayor in England can be considered as leader or manager. The paper critically assesses the concept of leadership before using empirical evidence to come to conclusions about the current role of elected mayor, an office with an uncertain history and unclear future in English public sector leadership.

The paper draws from the authors’ qualitative interviews with mayors from the inception of the office to the recent past.

The study finds that elected executive mayors are both leaders and managers, but that the notion of leadership in the local public sector remains contested as the mayor is a part of a bureaucratic structure of administration which limits the exercise of leadership as outlined in the existing literature.

As central government continues to advocate the expansion of the office of mayor, not least as part of English regional devolution, the study relates to future practice and to overall understanding of just what elected mayors do.

The paper provides useful insight into the forthcoming expansion of the mayoral system into the new Combined Authorities.

The paper provides original evidence about the faltering progress of the mayoral system in the English public sector.

How have department stores fared over the last five years? Patrick McAnally suggests that there has been something of a renaissance, that a newer generation of store has developed alongside the old one. Some of the new ones include Fenwicks and John Lewis at Brent Cross, Debenhams in Stirling and Bentalls in Bracknell — stores which by any standards are as much part of the 1970s as the latest hypermarket.

The chapter proposes that a new public enterprise (NPE) now characterises developments in local policymaking and service delivery. The NPE places the local public sector in a leading role, either in the direct ‘contracting in’ of services previously contracted out to the private sector, or in the co-ordination of partnerships between public, private and voluntary sector providers. Such remunicipalisation is non-ideological in nature, and international in its scope, being prompted by pragmatic considerations of cost and effectiveness.

The discussion draws from the authors' cumulative primary research on local public services and regeneration and specifically from a series of interviews with local leaders and senior managers conducted in 2018 and 2019.

It was found that traditional conceptions of ‘public’ vs ‘private’ are largely outmoded. Contracting ‘in’ is practised even by those on the Right of the political spectrum. The public sector is a leader of local partnerships and it is no longer assumed that the private sector brings greater efficiency or effectiveness.

The term ‘new public enterprise’ is used in an innovative way to describe the changed relationship between public, private and voluntary sectors. This has significant implications for both practice and theory. The empirical prevalence of the NPE can readily be identified in the UK and internationally. Its theoretical implications are challenging but promising.