I'm trying to find out how many different forms of councillor there are - ie how many district councillors, how many county councillors etc. I rang the LGA who told me to ring the Office of National Statistics. They had no idea. I've tried googling it but no luck. Can anyone help?
UPDATE: Thanks to all who left comments. David Boothroyd has come up with goods!
Parish. Town. District County.
ReplyDeleteProbably old quaint ones in old borough's.
Bring back Aldermen Iain!!
That's a story in itself isn't it - the local government association doesn't know how many members it's got.
ReplyDeleteyou also have teh unprincipled ones as
ReplyDeleteLots of them...
ReplyDeletePaul: I do expect that someone in the LGA does have the answer to Iain's query ...
ReplyDeleteBut CCHQ certainly does. Surprised it doesn't google more easily (I've tried too) but CCHQ have surely issued press releases on the state of the parties in terms of local and county representation? e.g. Tories now have a record 5,000 of a possible 9,000 - that sort of thing?? As I recall these figures were a bit off because they did include all sorts of parish councils and the like, the newer type of which are rebranded residents' associations.
"City" may be another overlapping category in some cases. I think I read somewhere that Hereford has city councillors, a district council AND a county council, plus whatever parishes.
Aldermen have never gone away Strapworld. Customarily awarded for x years service to councillors, e.g. 15 or 20, and remaining Alderman on retirement, plus Hon Aldermen sometimes used to push should-retires out.
Not sure how many of these people are really going to be interested in Total Pants Iain, but good luck with it. There might well be as much interest from always the bridesmaid PPCs and PLGCs in larger authorities as from any parish councillors whatsoever.
Try asking the Mysociety/WriteToThem people - http://www.writetothem.com/about-contact who might be able to help - these use data from GovEval http://www.goveval.com/
ReplyDeleteParish Councillors if you are interested are going to be difficult - there are unlikely to central records, and I've had difficulty getting information on them out of the District Authorities on the past.
Iain.
ReplyDeleteHave you been following the developments as regards what has been happening on Southampton City Council in the last 24 hours???
http://www.thisissouthampton.co.uk/
Best I can do in 5 minutes:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/2okof6
Matt W
Iain
ReplyDeleteYou've mixed up two questions there. You start with how many different forms of councillor, then talk about how many councillors there are.
If the later is what you seek you can do a counting exercise from the district, borough and county council websites that post that infomration. That will leave only the obscure councils like the Corporation of London, and you'll have to determine whether the local government of places like the channel islands or Isle of Man sould be included.
The 3 most common types of councillor are Parish, District/Borough and County.
James
How many types, or how many of each type? I can tell you for Counties if you give me five minutes, because it's my job. It's about 2,500.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of stating teh bleedin' obvious, try the Department for Communities nd Local Government press office. You'll also have to contact the Scottish Executive / Government and the Welsh Assembly Government. the Conservative councillors' Association - www.conservativecouncillors.com - should surely know how many Tories there are - there might be a similar body for the other parties? It's the sort of thing that might be in Whittakers Almanac - or that a local govt correspondent on one of the nationals might know. Very surprised that the LGA doen't have this information to hand - they are the 'trade union' of local govt. Also try IDEA - www.idea.gov.uk - which works for improvement (not hard) in local govt.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the answer is, it is probably too many!
Iain, the information you are after is in the National Census of Local Authority Councillors 2006 and can be found at http://www.lgar.local.gov.uk/lgv/core/page.do?pageId=23372
ReplyDeleteAs of now at this moment in time:
ReplyDeleteLondon borough councillors: 1,861
English county councillors: 2,270
Metropolitan borough councillors: 2,555
English unitary authority councillors: 2,407
English lower-tier district councillors: 10,575
Welsh unitary authority councillors: 1,264
Scottish unitary authority councillors: 1,222
Northern Ireland district councillors: 582
Grand total: 22,736
Parish councillors are not counted as principal local authorities but according to the National Association of Local Councils there are nearly 100,000 Parish, town and community councillors in England and Wales.
2,427. Have e-mailed.
ReplyDeletere southampton
ReplyDeleteWe proposed a 10% tax cut for pensioners, special police officers would not pay council tax and we proposed the lowest council tax since 1997. Labour and liberals did not like this. They are now in a coalition runing the city. i look forward to May 1st
cllr Gavin Dick
There are only two.
ReplyDeleteLabour and incompetent liars.
Gary
Hereford must be a special case.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand it right, Hereford City Council is a parish (one of nearly 150 parishes in the county).
No district, so no district councillors.
If David Boothroyd hadn't already found the list, I'd have sent you to Keith Edkin's Council Composition table.
Iain.
ReplyDeleteI apologise for my earlier remarks. I misread your blog. However I must congratulate Master Boothroyd.
This was the most helpful contribution he must have ever made. Has he just taken his eleven plus?
The difference between my figure and jdc's figure for county councils is because there are three unitary county councils (Isle of Wight, Herefordshire and Rutland) counted as unitary in my figures, but among the county councils for jdc.
ReplyDeleteThe Indigo list of council compositions is also available: http://www.indigopa.com/INDIGO/council.php
And don't forget the blog to tell you all about updates: .
Gavin dICK, 11:59
ReplyDeleteSorry, can't resist this.
Is that "running" or "ruining"?
our friends at the standards board for england should be able to shed some light on the matter - if you can bear contacting them.
ReplyDeleteAdd in MPs and Working Peers and the prison building programme will be bigger than the Olympics come the revolution!
ReplyDelete