Liverpool City Council

History

Liverpool was an ancient borough, having been granted its first charter by King John in 1207. It had a mayor from at least 1292.

Municipal borough

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. 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. In 1893 the city was granted the right to appoint a lord mayor.

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.

Liverpool's first female councillor was Eleanor Rathbone, elected in 1909. Eighteen years later, Margaret Beavan became the first female Lord Mayor in 1927.

Metropolitan borough

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. Liverpool's borough and city statuses and its lord mayoralty passed to the reformed district and its council.

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.

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, ultimately expelling members of Militant, including the council's deputy leader, Derek Hatton, in 1986.

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.

The council's chief executive, Ged Fitzgerald, was suspended in 2017 and subsequently resigned in 2018 following an investigation by Lancashire Constabulary into financial irregularities relating to a joint project between Lancashire County Council and British Telecom (BT) during Fitzgerald's tenure as chief executive of the county council. The police investigation subsequently widened to investigate alleged criminality at the city council and the Merseyside pension fund too. In 2020, it was reported that the city council's accounts since 2015 had not been signed off by its auditors on account of the 'complex ongoing police investigation'.

In December 2020, the elected mayor, Joe Anderson, was arrested as part of an anti-corruption investigation. The Labour Party suspended Anderson on news of his arrest. He did not resign as mayor but stood back from active duties, handing effective control to the deputy mayor, Wendy Simon, for the remainder of his term of office to May 2021. As of April 2024 no charges had been brought against him, but the investigation had yet to conclude.

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.

The commissioners remained in post until June 2024. Following improvements in the council's performance and management, the intervention was then scaled back to less direct supervision, due to last until March 2025.

Governance

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. There are no civil parishes in the city.

Political control

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.

Municipal borough

Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows:

Metropolitan borough

Leadership

The role of Lord Mayor of Liverpool is largely ceremonial. 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

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

Directly elected mayors

Metropolitan Borough leaders

Composition

Following the 2023 election, and subsequent by-elections and changes of allegiance up to July 2025, the composition of the council was:

The next election is due in 2027.

Elections

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.

These are the wards since the 2023 local elections.

Premises

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. 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.

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.

Coat of arms

Main article: Coat of arms of Liverpool

References

References

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