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Local authority areas in England typically have an executive leader and a cabinet selected from the local council, similar to how the national prime minister and cabinet are selected from Parliament. In contrast, residents of some areas, or groups of areas known as combined authorities or combined county authorities, directly elect the executive mayors of their local government.
The first such political post was the mayor of London, created as the executive of the Greater London Authority in 2000 as part of a reform of the local government of Greater London. Since the Local Government Act 2000, all of the several hundred principal local councils in England and Wales have been required to review their executive arrangements. Mayors who are directly elected to cover combined authorities or combined county authorities are informally known as metro mayors, as they typically cover metropolitan areas. Examples of metro mayors include the mayor of Greater Manchester and the mayor of the West Midlands.
Legislation on directly elected mayors applies both to England and Wales, but there are currently no directly elected mayors in Wales.
All devolved regional mayors currently have a seat on the Council of Nations and Regions, where they sit alongside the UK Prime Minister and First Ministers of devolved governments. The Mayor of London and the mayors of combined authorities also sit on the England only Mayoral Council.