The Wardman Wire

Iain Dale wants to know:

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 12pm. David Boothroyd supplied the gen:

As of now at this moment in time:

• London 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. ]

Leaving aside that he’s asked 2 different questions:

• How many types of Councillor. It is not clear whether Town and Parish Councillors are of interest.
• How many of each type.

… five minutes digging reveals the totals not the types.

For England for 2006:

Over 20,000 elected councillors represent local communities and local people on the 410 local authorities of England and Wales. Employing over two million people, these local councils undertake an estimated 700 different functions.

Of which, concerning Wales:

There are over 1200 councillors serving on Wales’ 22 all purpose local authorities - these are responsible for £4 billion of public expenditure which is over one third of the total Welsh budget.

There should be a PDF brochure here, but it is on a government-run site so the link is broken.

Scotland has 32 councils and 1222 Councillors:

The Directory provides a unique one-step source for:
All 1222 Councillors

You can buy a directory for about £120.

Northern Ireland has 26 local councils and 582 Councillors.

That’s the best I can do for now, but for exact numbers I’d be looking at the Boundary Commission for England and their equivalents, not the Local Government Association.

Or some commercial databases.

I’ll revisit this later today if I have time.

Useful Links

The Northern Ireland LGA website has a useful breakdown with councillors by council.
The BBC Action network has a useful background (not stats) page about Councillors, and one about Parish/Town Councillors (basically they cover street furniture, parks, cemeteries and other “local environment” things.).

Tags: statistics, number crunching, local councillors england, local councillors ireland, local councillors scotland, local councillors wales