I’ll have a go.
The Mayor is democratically elected - see him as effectively the Prime Minister of Lewisham. He is mandated by electors to see through the programme of work he stood for election on. From the elected Councillors he selects a small governing Cabinet- each person with responsibility for leading and overseeing strategy on particular programmes of work - housing, social services, community programmes etc. See these people as his Cabinet Ministers. The remaining Councillors are effectively the MP’s - they have a vote, but no cabinet responsibility.
To implement the programmes there is a Chief Executive - see him as the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet - who is a career senior manager in Local Government. Accountable to the Mayor, the CEO directs all programme implementation across Lewisham, delivering the strategies agreed by Cabinet. The CEO is responsible to the Mayor for programme delivery plus organisational structure, recruitment, managing finance, IT , HR and the employment of staff. Using his executive team and employees he provides advice, guidance and briefings to the Mayor and Cabinet.
The Executive (ie employed) team are career experts in their field, see them as Senior Civil Servants leading on eg housing, IT, HR, social services etc.
Oversight and scrutiny is through small oversight committees which will include non cabinet Councillors.
None of which takes away the fact that we can be confident of seeing the Mayor pictured in his chain and a hard hat (and high vis jacket a la George Osborne) when things are looking good - new housing development say, and a tin hat when venturing anywhere near Millwall.
That’s it (…withdraws to cupboard under the stairs and puts on own hard hat…).
