The council has been under Labour majority control since 2011. It meets at Leeds Civic Hall and has its main offices at Merrion House.
History
Leeds Corporation
Leeds (historically often spelt Leedes) was a manor and then a town, receiving a charter from King Charles I as a 'Free Borough' in 1626 giving it powers of self-government, leading to the formation of the Leeds Corporation to administer it.[1][2] The leader was initially an alderman, the first holder being Sir John Savile.[3] A second charter, granted in 1661 by Charles II, gave the town the right to appoint a mayor. The first holder of that post was Thomas Danby.[3]
Leeds was reformed in 1836 to become a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs were governed across the country. The ruling body was then formally called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Leeds", generally known as the corporation or town council.[4][1] When elected county councils were created in 1889 Leeds was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services and so it became a county borough, independent from the new West Riding County Council. Leeds became a city in 1893, after which the corporation was also known as the city council. In 1897 the mayoralty was raised to a lord mayor.
Leeds City Council is responsible for providing all statutory local authority services in Leeds, except for those it provides jointly in conjunction with other West Yorkshire authorities. This includes education, housing, planning, transport and highways, social services, libraries, leisure and recreation, waste collection, waste disposal, environmental health and revenue collection. The council is one of the largest employers in West Yorkshire, with around 33,000 employees.[7]
Education Leeds
Education Leeds was set up in 2001 as a non-profit making company wholly owned by Leeds City Council to provide education support services for the council.[8] For its first five years it operated as a public-private partnership between the Council and Capita. The senior councillors of the council's executive board voted in March 2010 to stop using Education Leeds to provide services from 31 March 2011,[9] thereby effectively causing it to cease operation.
Housing
Until 1 October 2013, Leeds City Council's housing stock was managed and operated by three Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) since 2007. They were wholly owned by the council but operated as autonomous and self-governing organisations. The ALMOs, which are arranged on a regional basis were:
As of 1 October 2013, the ALMOs returned to Leeds City Council and all management of council housing stock became the responsibility of Housing Leeds. At this point, the ALMOs ceased to exist.
Management of more than 2000 homes in Belle Isle is carried out by Belle Isle Tenant Management Organisation, the largest tenant management organisation in the UK outside London.[13]
Leeds Museums & Galleries is a museum service run by Leeds City Council.[14]
Established in 1821, it is the largest local authority-run museum service in England, with one of the larger and more significant multidisciplinary collections in the UK, looking after 1.3 million objects.[15] The service is run and primarily funded by Leeds City Council (LCC), and plays a significant role in shaping the cultural life of the city, but as a leading museum service it has a regional and national reputation and role. In 2012 the organisation achieved Major Partner Museum status from Arts Council England, which brought significant additional funding and further national prominence and expectation.[16]
The service has at times run major events across the city, with visitors numbering in the millions, such as the 2014-19 Legacies of War Project, which examined how Leeds was affected by the First World War,[17] and developed teaching materials for schools.[18]
West Yorkshire Joint Services provides services for the five district local authorities in West Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield) in the areas of archaeology, archives, ecology, materials testing, public analyst, and trading standards.[20]
Council structures
Overview and scrutiny
The executive and workings of the council are overseen by six scrutiny boards. These panels involve councillors from all parties and some independent members. Scrutiny boards are able to review decisions taken by the executive or by officers of the council and to refer them for further consideration.
Regulatory
The licensing committee of the council is drawn from councillors from all parties and is responsible for entertainment, refreshment, personal and premises licences established under the Licensing Act 2003. Three plans panels are responsible for determining planning applications which have not been delegated to officers for decision, such as large or controversial applications or those in which a councillor or officer has a personal interest.
Community committees
Ten community committees are responsible for managing certain area-specific budgets and responsibilities, such as community centres and CCTV, in partnership with local communities. Five of the community committees cover areas in "inner Leeds" and five cover areas in "outer Leeds".[21] These committees also exert considerable influence over other areas of local interest such as street-cleansing and community policing.
The Lord Mayor of Leeds is a ceremonial, non-partisan position elected annually by and from the councillors. As well as acting as the chair of the council, the Lord Mayor represents the City of Leeds at events within and outside the city.[22]
During the mayoral year, the Lord Mayor's Charity Appeal raises funds for one or more charities of the mayor's choice.
Leadership
The council operates a Leader and Cabinet executive as defined under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 2000. The executive board of the council currently consists of nine executive members with portfolio responsibilities from the ruling Labour group, and the leader of the biggest opposition group (Conservative).[24]
Since February 2021, the Leader of the council has been James Lewis (Labour). He succeeded Judith Blake, the first woman ever to lead the council.[25][26]
The council is composed of 99 councillors, three for each of the city's electoral wards.
One councillor for each ward – a third of all of the total councillors – is elected at every council election, which are held in three of every four years. Each councillor is also elected to serve a four-year term. This only differs following a boundary review, where all council seats must be re-elected. The most recent full council elections were in 1980, 2004 and 2018. The latter election saw all three ward council seats up for re-election, with each of the three successful candidates in each ward awarded a unique one, two or four-year term respectively with longer terms given to the candidates with the highest number of votes.[55]
Since the 2011 council election, the council has been run by a Labourmajority administration. Between the 2004 and 2011 elections, the council's political composition meant no one party had a full majority and therefore there was no overall control. During this time, a coalition administration between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was formally agreed. Throughout the coalition, both parties' Group Leaders jointly shared the office of Leader of the council, each holding it for six months in turn. However, in 2010, the Labour Group regained control as a minority administration with the support of the two Green Party councillors.[56][57][58]
Beforehand, the ward boundaries had not been amended since the last review in 1979. The 1979 review increased the number of wards in Leeds from 32 to 33, thereby increasing the number of councillors from 96 to 99. The 1980 council election was the first to be contested based on the new ward boundaries across the city, and therefore it was a full council, all-out election where all of the 99 council seats were up for election.
The boundary review between February 2002 and July 2003 was completed by the Boundary Committee for England.[63] The review recommended the retention of 99 councillors representing 33 wards across the city, but suggested substantial alterations to ward boundaries to reduce the level of variance between different wards. Prior to the boundary review, based on the 2001 electorate, the largest and smallest wards respectively were Morley South (22,167 electors) and Hunslet (10,955 electors). Following the review all wards had an electorate within 10% of the average of all 33 wards across the city.[64]
A similar process was completed in November 2017 by the Boundary Committee's successor, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The process had held consultations since July 2016. The biggest ward boundary changes saw the creation of two new wards in Headingley & Hyde Park and Little London and Woodhouse from the previous Hyde Park & Woodhouse and Headingley wards. City & Hunslet also became Hunslet & Riverside.[65] Following the example of previous reviews, all of the city's councillors were re-elected together again based on the new ward boundaries in May 2018.
The council meets at Leeds Civic Hall on Calverley Street, which was purpose-built for the city council and opened in 1933.[66] The council has numerous other buildings around the city, with its main offices being at Merrion House, which forms part of the Merrion Centre and was built in 1973.[67]
Controversy
In September 2012 the council announced its intention to introduce a bring your own device policy as part of cost saving measures.[68] In the same year, the council was fined £95,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after it sent confidential and sensitive information about a child in care to the wrong recipient. Commenting on Leeds and other authorities who had made similar data protection breaches, the ICO said "It would be far too easy to consider these breaches as simple human error. The reality is that they are caused by councils treating sensitive personal data in the same routine way they would deal with more general correspondence. Far too often in these cases, the councils do not appear to have acknowledged that the data they are handling is about real people, and often the more vulnerable members of society."[69]
Notes
↑ Previously Executive Member for Economy, Culture and Education
↑ Previously Executive Member for Children's Social Care and Health Partnerships
↑ Executive Member for Environment and Active Lifestyles (2017–2021)
↑ Previously Executive Member for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure
↑ Previously Executive Member for Health and Wellbeing and Executive Member for Adult Social Care, Public Health and Active Lifestyles
↑ Under the terms of the coalition agreement between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives from May 2004, the full-time post of Leader of the Council swapped between the leaders of the two parties' council groupings every six months:
Mark Harris (Liberal Democrats) from 28 June to 30 November 2004, 24 May to 30 November 2005, 23 May to 30 November 2006, 24 May to 30 November 2007, and
Andrew Carter (Conservatives) from 1 December 2004 to 23 May 2005, 1 December 2005 to 22 May 2006, 1 December 2006 to 24 May 2007.
↑ Richard Brett was elected to replace Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Leeds City Council after Harris stepped down on 30 November 2007. Under the terms of the coalition agreement between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives from May 2004, the full-time post of Leader of the Council swapped between the leaders of the two parties' council groupings every six months:
Andrew Carter (Conservatives) from 1 December 2007 to 22 May 2008, 1 December 2008 to 21 May 2009, 1 December 2009 to 27 May 2010, and
Brett (Liberal Democrats) from 22 May to 30 November 2008, 21 May to 30 November 2009.
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