Liverpool City Council | |
---|---|
Type | |
Type | |
Leadership | |
Andrew Lewis since June 2023 [4] | |
Structure | |
Seats | 85 councillors |
Political groups |
|
Joint committees | Liverpool City Region Combined Authority |
Length of term | 4 years |
Elections | |
First-past-the-post | |
Last election | 4 May 2023 |
Next election | 6 May 2027 |
Motto | |
Latin: Deus Nobis Haec Otia Fecit, lit. 'God has granted us this ease' | |
Meeting place | |
Town Hall, High Street, Liverpool, L2 3SW | |
Website | |
www |
Liverpool City Council is the local authority for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. Liverpool has had a local authority since 1207, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1974 the council has been a metropolitan borough council. It provides the majority of local government services in the city. The council has been a member of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority since 2014.
The council has been under Labour majority control since 2010. The council meets at Liverpool Town Hall and has its main offices at the Cunard Building.
Liverpool was an ancient borough, having been granted its first charter by King John in 1207. [5] [6] It had a mayor from at least 1292. [7]
Liverpool was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1836 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. It was then governed by a body formally called the 'mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Liverpool', generally known as the corporation or town council. As part of the same reforms, the borough boundaries were enlarged to match the larger Liverpool parliamentary constituency, which had been expanded in 1832 to include the neighbouring parishes of Everton and Kirkdale and part of West Derby. [8] [9] [10] The corporation created a police force in 1836.
Liverpool was granted city status in 1880, after which the corporation was also known as the city council. When elected county councils were established in 1889, Liverpool was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services, and so it became a county borough, independent from the new Lancashire County Council, whilst remaining part of the geographical county of Lancashire. [11] In 1893 the city was granted the right to appoint a lord mayor. [12]
The city boundaries were enlarged on several occasions, notably gaining Wavertree, Walton and parts of Toxteth and West Derby in 1895, Fazakerley in 1905, Allerton, Childwall and Woolton in 1913, the rest of West Derby in 1928, and Speke in 1932. [11]
Liverpool's first female councillor was Eleanor Rathbone, elected in 1909. Eighteen years later, Margaret Beavan became the first female Lord Mayor in 1927. [7]
The city was reformed to become a metropolitan district in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It kept the same boundaries as the former county borough (which had last been adjusted in 1956) and became one of five metropolitan districts within the new metropolitan county of Merseyside. [13] Liverpool's borough and city statuses and its lord mayoralty passed to the reformed district and its council. [14] [15]
From 1974 until 1986 the council was a lower-tier authority, with upper-tier functions provided by Merseyside County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986 and its functions passed to Merseyside's five borough councils, including Liverpool, with some services provided through joint committees. [16]
In 2012 the council introduced the position of Mayor of Liverpool as a directly elected mayor to serve as the council's political leader instead of having a leader of the council chosen by the councillors. The position was separate from the more ceremonial role of the Lord Mayor. The directly elected mayor position was abolished in 2023 and the position of leader of the council was reinstated.
Since 2014 the council has been a member of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, which has been led by the directly elected Mayor of the Liverpool City Region since 2017. The combined authority provides strategic leadership and co-ordination for certain functions across the region, but Liverpool City Council continues to be responsible for most local government functions. [17] [18]
Liverpool City Council provides metropolitan borough services. Some strategic functions in the area are provided by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority; the leader of Liverpool City Council sits on the combined authority as Liverpool's representative. [19] There are no civil parishes in the city. [20]
The council has been under Labour majority control since 2010.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the council was run by the Conservatives. Labour councillors were first elected to the council in 1905, but Liverpool was one of the last major cities in the UK in which the Labour Party gained control, which first occurred in 1955. [21]
Municipal borough
Party in control | Years | |
---|---|---|
Whig | 1835–1841 | |
Conservative | 1841–1892 | |
Liberal | 1892–1895 | |
Conservative | 1895–1955 | |
No overall control | 1955–1956 | |
Labour | 1956–1962 | |
Conservative | 1962–1963 | |
Labour | 1963–1967 | |
Conservative | 1967–1971 | |
No overall control | 1971–1972 | |
Labour | 1972–1974 |
Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows: [22] [23] [24]
Metropolitan borough
Party in control | Years | |
---|---|---|
No overall control | 1974–1983 | |
Labour | 1983–1992 | |
No overall control | 1992–1996 | |
Labour | 1996–1998 | |
Liberal Democrats | 1998–2010 | |
Labour | 2010–present |
The role of Lord Mayor of Liverpool is largely ceremonial role. Political leadership is instead provided by the leader of the council. Between 2012 and 2023 the council had a directly elected Mayor of Liverpool (a separate post from the Lord Mayor) instead of a leader. The directly elected mayor position was abolished in 2023 and the position of leader reinstated. The leaders since 1918 have been:
County Borough leaders
Councillor | Party | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Charles Petrie [25] | Conservative | 4 Nov 1918 | ||
Archibald Salvidge [26] | Conservative | 18 Nov 1918 | 11 Dec 1928 | |
Thomas White [27] [28] | Conservative | 7 Jan 1929 | 25 Jan 1938 | |
Alfred Shennan | Conservative | 1938 | 1955 | |
Jack Braddock | Labour | 1955 | 1961 | |
Maxwell Entwistle | Conservative | 1961 | 1963 | |
Jack Braddock | Labour | May 1963 | Nov 1963 | |
Bill Sefton | Labour | 1963 | 1967 | |
Harold Steward | Conservative | 1967 | 1972 | |
Bill Sefton | Labour | 1972 | 31 Mar 1974 |
The last leader of the council before the 1974 reforms, Bill Sefton, went on to be the first leader of Merseyside County Council.
Metropolitan Borough leaders
Councillor | Party | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cyril Carr | Liberal | 1 Apr 1974 | 1975 | |
Bill Smythe | Liberal | 1975 | 1976 | |
John Hamilton | Labour | 1976 | 1978 | |
Trevor Jones | Liberal | 1978 | 1983 | |
John Hamilton | Labour | 1983 | Nov 1986 | |
Tony Byrne [29] | Labour | Nov 1986 | Mar 1987 | |
Trevor Jones | Liberal | Mar 1987 | May 1987 | |
Harry Rimmer | Labour | May 1987 | Oct 1987 | |
Keva Coombes | Labour | 1987 | 1990 | |
Harry Rimmer | Labour | 1990 | 1996 | |
Frank Prendergast | Labour | 1996 | 1998 | |
Mike Storey | Liberal Democrats | May 1998 | 25 Nov 2005 | |
Warren Bradley | Liberal Democrats | Dec 2005 | May 2010 | |
Joe Anderson | Labour | May 2010 | 6 May 2012 |
Directly elected mayors
Mayor | Party | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Joe Anderson [lower-alpha 1] | Labour | 7 May 2012 | Dec 2020 | |
Independent | Dec 2020 | 9 May 2021 | ||
Joanne Anderson | Labour | 10 May 2021 | 7 May 2023 |
Metropolitan Borough leaders
Councillor | Party | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Liam Robinson | Labour | 17 May 2023 |
Following the 2023 election the composition of the council was: [31]
Party | Councillors | |
---|---|---|
Labour | 61 | |
Liberal Democrats | 15 | |
Green | 3 | |
Liberal | 3 | |
Liverpool Community Independents | 3 | |
Total | 85 |
The next election is due in 2027.
Since the last boundary changes in 2023, 85 councillors have been elected from 64 wards, with each ward electing one, two or three councillors. Elections are held every four years. [32] [33]
These are the wards since the 2023 local elections. [34]
Council meetings are held at Liverpool Town Hall at the junction of High Street, Dale Street and Water Street, which was built between 1749 and 1754. [35] The council's main administrative offices are located in the Cunard Building at Pier Head, which had been completed in 1917 as the headquarters of the Cunard Line. The council bought the building in 2013. [36] [37]
From 1868 until 2016 the council's main offices were the Municipal Buildings on Dale Street. The Municipal Buildings were sold in 2016 after the council decided they were too large and costly to maintain and following the transfer of most offices to the Cunard Building. [38]
During the 1980s, the Militant group gained control of Liverpool's Labour Party. Under their leadership the council attempted to challenge the national government on several issues, including refusing to set a budget in 1985. The leadership of the national Labour Party was drawn into the controversy, culminating with Neil Kinnock's speech to the party conference in 1985, denouncing Liverpool City Council without explicitly naming it. Derek Hatton, deputy leader of the council, shouted "lies" at the platform, and Eric Heffer, MP for Liverpool Walton constituency, left the conference platform. [39] The Labour Party ultimately succeeded in expelling members of Militant, and Hatton himself was expelled from the Labour Party in June 1986. [40]
In April 2015, the Liverpool Echo reported that Mayor Joe Anderson had instructed Liverpool City Council lawyers to assist him in a legal dispute he was bringing against Chesterfield High School for unfair dismissal. The school had dismissed Anderson after he had not worked at the school for two years. The council spent over £89,500 from public funds to support Anderson's application to the employment tribunal over two and a half years. The initial tribunal found the school was within its rights to terminate Anderson's contract; however, they had not followed the correct procedure to do so. Anderson appealed against the finding but lost. [41] [42]
In May 2017, Gerard ('Ged') Fitzgerald, then the council's chief executive, and three others were arrested by Lancashire Police on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation. It followed investigations into financial irregularities relating to 'One Connect', a partnership between Lancashire County Council and British Telecom (BT) set up during Fitzgerald's tenure as Lancashire council chief executive. Lancashire county council had aborted a procurement exercise relating to the potential outsourcing of Lancashire county council's vehicle fleet to British Telecom, an action that was investigated in 2013 by a firm of solicitors, DAC Beachcroft and later the police. [43]
One of the others arrested at the time was Geoffrey Driver, then Lancashire council leader and leader of its Conservative party group. The warrants for the men's arrests stated that evidence had been gathered that between 2013 and 2015 Mr. Driver in collusion with the three others had been "involved in activity directed toward a number of principal witnesses ... which was clearly designed to intimidate, belittle and undermine them both professionally and, crucially, as witnesses in the investigation". The witnesses reportedly included four people who held Lancashire county council roles, including as treasurer, auditor and as a councillor. [43]
In September 2017, it was reported Fitzgerald had been suspended, following a Liverpool council disciplinary panel meeting. [44] In December 2017, Fitzgerald applied for a judicial review of his arrest, but in April 2018, the High Court refused. In its judgment, the court said one ground for refusing his application was that the scope of an earlier investigation by Lancashire police – dubbed Operation Sheridan – that had led to his arrest had "widened to include alleged criminality within Liverpool City Council and the Merseyside Pension Fund (MPF)". [43] [45] In May 2018, Fitzgerald resigned from his Liverpool city council role with immediate effect. He remained on police bail. [46]
The High Court judgment was critical of the 2017 application for arrest warrants presented by D.C. Fishwick of Lancashire Police, which "ran to 29 pages with another 27 pages of appendices" and was described as "not easy to summarise ... presented as it was ... as an impenetrable, discursive mass lacking a discernible sense of order. Understandably, the police are concerned to comply with their duty as to disclosure; but the answer to that obligation does not lie in simply "throwing" material at the Court in the manner in which it was done in this case". The Lancashire police investigation into the financial irregularities started in 2013 and was reported to have cost in excess of £2m by May 2017. [47]
Lancashire county council's 'One Connect' was reportedly similar to 'Liverpool Direct', a partnership set up between Liverpool city council and BT, which was later bought out entirely by the council. [48] David McElhinney, who was one of the men arrested in May 2017, had been chief executive of both Liverpool and Lancashire council's joint ventures with BT at various times. [43]
In August 2018, a case file of evidence gathered on Mr Fitzgerald and two other ex-council executives was handed to the Crown Prosecution Service.
In June 2020, it was reported Liverpool city council's accounts since 2015 had not been signed off by its auditors, Grant Thornton, on account of the 'complex ongoing police investigation'. The Crown Prosecution Service said the file was still being considered. Lancashire Police declined to comment. [49]
On 5 December 2020, Joe Anderson was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and witness intimidation, as part of a police investigation, dubbed Operation Aloft, into alleged fraud in the awarding of construction contracts in the Liverpool city area. Four other men were also arrested. It is not clear whether the arrests were related to the council bribery allegations involving Nick Kavanagh and Elliot Lawless (see above). Anderson said he had been interviewed for over six hours by police and bailed to return in a month. The Labour Party suspended Anderson on news of his arrest. Liverpool City Council said it would not comment on matters relating to an individual. [50] [51]
On 24 March 2021, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick, announced that he was appointing commissioners to oversee some of the authority's functions for at least 3 years. This was following an investigation, commissioned in December 2020 that found there were "multiple apparent failures" and a "deeply concerning picture of mismanagement" in the council. Jenrick said that the commissioners might have to take over authority in regeneration, highways and property management if they saw no improvement. [52] [53] [54] The commissioners remained in post until June 2024. Following improvements in the council's governance, the intervention was then scaled back to less direct supervision, due to last until March 2025. [55]
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