From the 1st of January 2007 onward the City of Tampere will be led by an elected Mayorand four Deputy Mayors. The new model, with an elected Mayor, is based on the need to consolidate the political power of the City Council and emphasise the political nature of municipal government. Tampere wants a management configuration whereby the political control and accountability of the key positions in the city management are clearer than at present. At the same time, the municipality wants to establish the fact that it has a political leader vested with normative powers and responsibilities, through whom the division of power that is the prerequisite of representative democracy is implemented throughout the organisation.
Furthermore, the adoption of a system with an elected mayor will improve the conditions for the reconciliation of management by elected officials and management by civil servants, and facilitate the democratic control of policymaking. Political leadership and leadership by civil servants are separated in a system with an elected mayor. Tampere’s model of mayorship comprises one Mayor and four Deputy Mayors.
The Mayor and his four Deputies will be elected officials in full-time positions. They will be elected by the City Council from among the Councillors for the duration of the Council’s term of office, and the City Council will also have the power to remove them from office in a case of no confidence. The first term of the Mayor and the four Deputy Mayors will be 2007 - 2008. The Mayor will also be the Chairman of the City Board. There will be no city manager alongside the Mayor; rapporteurs to the City Board will comprise the managers of the municipal corporations and the Deputy Mayors. The Mayor will lead both the purchasing and the providing organisations.
The Deputy Mayors will chair committees set up on the basis of client processes and they will be in charge of 1—3 core processes. Together with their respective committees, the Deputy Mayors will be responsible for the purchasing of services. No organisation, as such, will be subject to them; purchaser organisations will be set up separately. The officials responsible for purchasing operations will serve as rapporteurs to the purchasing committees. Deputy Mayors will not be members of the City Board but they will act as rapporteurs to the City Board according to their assignments.
