The elected executive and the local authority chief executive - a delicately balanced and complementary partnership
On COE website, we can find one reference and information about last UDITE’s Congress:
The Congress, together with the Union of Local Authority Chief Executives of Europe (UDITE) organised a European conference, examining the partnership between the elected executive and the local authority chief executive which will take place in the Palais de l’Europe.
The objective of this Conference was to examine the ways in which local authority services are organised and the institutional relations between the executive body, generally political in nature, and the administrative body responsible for putting decisions into practice. The various parties concerned – elected representatives, local authority chief executives and experts – addressed the Conference on subjects such as the political and managerial responsibility of the elected executive in local and regional administration, the role of the chief executive in relations with the elected body and the administration and the synergies between politics and administration.
Jean-Claude van Cauwenberghe: ”Being a territorial executive is no walk in the park”
Presenting the conclusions of the UDITE Conference, on 18 January, Je
an-Claude van Cauwenberghe stressed the need for synergy between the elected executive and the local Chief executive, to better respond to the demands of citizens which ”are evolving faster than our capacity of response”. ”The elected executive has a mandate from the citizens to carry out a political programme. The administrative manager has his professionalism and technical experience. What they have in common is unfortunately a loss of public confidence in both political life and public administration,” he said.
Yavuz Mildon: ”Local Chief executive and elected executive share responsibility for policy-making”
Speaking at the UDITE Conference on 17 January, Yavuz Mildon, President of the Chamber of Regions, stressed the need to ensure the optimal institutional relations between the political executive body making decisions at local and regional level and the administrative 
body in charge of implementing these decisions. ”The balance in these relations is sometimes fragile, reflecting the intricacy of interaction between politics and management,” he said, adding that, inasmuch as local and regional elected representatives should enjoy a degree of autonomy from central authorities, the same must apply to local staff, headed by the Chief executive, vis-à-vis elected representatives.
Adrian Mifsud: ”Local and regional authorities must move from administration to policy”
”Local and regional authorities must take a quantum leap in moving from administration to policy, from the management of familiar issues to the development of strategies and the shaping of the future,” UD
ITE President Adrian Mifsud stressed at the opening of the Conference on 17 January. ”All this requires a professional top management, and UDITE is strongly committed to this change,” he said, calling on the Congress to support a common European Code for Local and Regional Professional Management Standards as an extension to Article 6 of the European Charter of Local Self-Government.