Lewisham's new Green mayor appoints his cabinet

It is just two weeks ago that Liam Shrivastava was elected as Lewisham’s Green Mayor, leading to the first change in political control of Lewisham Council since 1968 when a Conservative administration took control for three years.

Liam Shrivastava’s election was accompanied by a huge switch in the political composition of Lewisham councillors. The previous group of four Green councillors (all former Labour councillors elected in 2022, who had then defected to the Greens over the last 15 months), has grown to a majority of 39 councillors, dominating a council chamber with 54 seats in total.

At present there is one vacancy in Crofton Park, where Shrivastava stood for election as a councillor, and a by-election has been called.    

The Labour Party's dominance of Lewisham council since 1971 came to an abrupt end on 7 May, with Labour being relegated to an opposition group of 14 councillors. 

The strength of the Greens is further demonstrated by the fact that there is just a single ward in the borough – Downham – where there are no Green councillors. 

Celebration for Greens, but also key decisions

After such significant and historic election results, is not surprising that the council’s Annual General Meeting was an occasion of celebration for the Greens, with excited new councillors and their supporters whooping, cheering and making standing ovations throughout the evening.  

And unlike most council meetings, which are often witnessed by a handful of people, on this occasion the public gallery was packed.  Conference rooms had to be used to cope with an overflow of members of the public.

But in an administrative drop-off, the papers that councillors were approving were not available to the public on the council website. This meant that members of the public did not know the content of the many decisions that were being approved.

Many key decisions were made during the evening, in particular the new mayor appointing his new cabinet. 

Other important decisions included agreeing the allowances for the mayor and councillors, and the composition and chairing of important committees.   

But for most items on the agenda, there was no summary of the recommendations and no discussion, so the public were left in the dark about what had been agreed until the papers appeared the following day.

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Lewisham’s new cabinet 

The new mayor has re-organised and renamed cabinet roles and announced the new cabinet:

• Councillor Rudi Schmidt: Deputy Mayor and Finance, Resources and Economic Development 
• Councillor Ade Adewunmi: Strategy, Performance and Digital Transformation 
• Councillor Daniel Dream: Inclusive Regeneration, Planning and Housing Delivery 
• Councillor Natalie Thomas: Safer Homes, Homelessness and Housing Services 
• Councillor Rotimi Skyers: Children, SEND, Youth Empowerment and Culture 
• Councillor Samantha Gardiner: Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care 
• Councillor Hau-Yu Tam: Communities, Sanctuary and Healing 
• Councillor Shireen Asaw: Workers, Business and Skills
• Councillor Corin Ashwell: Environment, Nature, Transport and Climate Action

The previous cabinet position of Culture, Communities and Sports has been split across other positions and a new cabinet role of Strategy, Performance and Digital Transformation has been created.

Councillors' salaries, allowances and mayor's promised 'pay cut'  

Although this item was not debated before it was approved, an important element of the AGM is to update and amend the council’s Members’ Allowance Scheme. 

This covers the basic allowance granted to every councillor, and the levels of Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) that is also granted to councillors for chairing of committees, serving in the cabinet or being Deputy Mayor. 

Councillors receive a basic allowance which last year was £13,201 per annum and many roles receive extra payments. This year's basic allowance figure has been omitted from documents, we will update this article when its confirmed.

Liam Shrivastava first proposed a 20% cut in salary of the Lewisham mayor, the deputy mayor and senior cabinet members in the Greens' budget amendment, in March.

He also proposed to end Lewisham's cabinet advisory roles.

Shrivastava then went on to make a specific and high-profile commitment to “taking a 20% pay cut from the Mayor’s salary” in his mayoral election campaign.

(This appears in his entry in the mayoral election campaign booklet, sent to each elector).  

Yet at the AGM the council passed a recommendation that the mayor’s salary should be set at £93,575 for the year ahead, compared to £88,743 paid to previous mayor Brenda Dacres last year - an increase of £4,832 or 5.4%.

However, the report notes “the intention of Mayor Shrivastava to donate 20% of the Directly Elected Mayor’s allowance to food justice initiatives.” 

Whether or not donating money to a charity from an increased salary of almost five thousand pounds is what most people would understand by a "pay cut" is an question that was not addressed at the meeting. 

The deputy mayor continues to receive an allowance of £45,735, unchanged from the previous year.

A change to abolish the two-tier scheme for additional payments to cabinet members was agreed.

The higher tier cabinet member payments have been abolished, which seems broadly in line with the intentions of the Greens budget amendment.

But now nine cabinet members will be paid the same, at a rate of £28,811 for the year ahead, compared to the previous lower rate of £17,932 paid to a six lower tier cabinet members under the past administration, resulting in a 60% pay increase for these six roles.

The cabinet advisor role has been abolished. The document on allowances states that the changes are cost neutral.

Chairing of scrutiny committees

There is a requirement in the council's constitution that the allocation of chairs and vice chairs of scrutiny/select committees reflects the political balance of the council. 

Labour have 25.9% of Lewisham seats and there are 19 committees, including seven scrutiny/select committees.

Labour have been given the chair of the Safer and Stronger Scrutiny committee, along with the vice chair of Overview and Scrutiny and Public Accounts Scrutiny committees.

All the other committees that have been announced will be chaired and vice chaired by Green councillors.  

Strangely the important Strategic Planning Committee - which makes planning decisions on the biggest developments in the borough – has not yet been allocated a chair.    

Whether this is an oversight, or due to a decision not being reached in time for the AGM is not yet clear. 

Ed Sutton, a leading local campaigner on divestment for Palestine over the last year, is now a councillor and chair of the pension investment committee, and will be held under the spotlight by his fellow campaigners.

Lewisham Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Lewisham and Greenwich CND held a rally outside the town hall before the AGM and made it clear that they will be demanding that new Green administration deliver.

The mayor's address  

The AGM ended with an address by the new Mayor.   He referred to the recent election as a ‘moment of real engagement across our borough” and drew attention to the large increase in voter turnout compared to 2022.  

He also took the opportunity to praise a number of former councillors, many of which have served on Lewisham Council for many years, most notably Chris Best, who was first elected in 1986. 

However the key part of his speech was setting out his immediate priorities, his first was addressing the visible issues that affect people’s daily lives, such as fly-tipping. 

His second priority was a pledge of ‘bold action on housing’, with plans to drive forward an ambitious programme for genuinely affordable homes, alongside a retrofit programme to ‘address disrepair and improve energy efficiency’. 

He set out his third priority as reshaping how Lewisham’s economy works, with a claim that far too much wealth has flown out of the borough through past procurement policies. 

One further pledge made was to bring back Lewisham’s People’s Day, although there was no indication given as to whether it would be returning this summer.

The mayor's chosen charity for the year is Action for Refugees in Lewisham.

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The papers behind the decisions made at Lewisham Council’s AGM on the 20 May are now on Lewisham council’s website, a webcast of the meeting is also available. 

The composition of Lewisham council following the elections on the 7 May is 39 Green Councillors, 14 Labour Councillors and one vacancy, due to the mayor not being able to become a councillor in Crofton Park where he was elected.

The by-election for the vacancy at Crofton Park will be held Thursday 18 June.