Organisation

The organisational management of the City of Aarhus is called the City Executive Board and consists of the mayor and the five aldermen who each head a municipal department. As opposed to the other councillors, the members of the City Executive Board are employed full-time to run the City of Aarhus.

The City Executive Board prepares the meetings of the City Council and is thus responsible for recommendations to the City Council. The City Executive Board has the formal responsibility for implementing the decisions made by the City Council. In practice, the decisions are implemented by the relevant municipal departments, which have the professional expertise.

The mayor

The mayor is chairman of both the City Council and the City Executive Board. At the same time, the mayor is the political head of the Mayor’s Department which, among other things, handles financial matters and coordinates tasks across the municipal departments.

The aldermen

The five aldermen have the political and administrative responsibility for their own municipal department. The municipal departments submit recommendations to the City Council and implement the City Council’s decisions. Like the mayor, the aldermen are elected for the entire election period, i.e. for four years at a time.

What makes the City Executive Board special is that the aldermen are appointed on the basis of the share of votes obtained by each party in the city council election. This means that political disagreements may arise between an alderman and the political majority in the City Council.

The City Council