Government of Birmingham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birmingham


shown within West Midlands
Image:WMids-Birmingham.png

This page is about the Government of Birmingham, England.

Contents

[edit] Civic history

See also History of Birmingham

Most of Birmingham was historically a part of Warwickshire, though the modern city also includes villages and towns formerly in Staffordshire or Worcestershire.

Until the 1760s Birmingham was administered by manorial and parish officials, most of whom served on a part-time and honorary basis. By the 1760s the population growth of Birmingham made this system completely inadequate, and salaried officials were needed. In 1768 a body of "Commissioners of the Streets" was established who had powers to levy a rate for functions such as cleaning and street lighting. They were later given powers to provide policing and build public buildings.

The Reform Act of 1832 gave Birmingham its first representation in Parliament initially with only two MPs but this has been gradually expanded.

Birmingham gained the status of a municipal borough in 1838 and gained its first elected town council which took over the functions of the Street Commissioners. In 1889 it became a county borough (unitary authority) and a city. This remained unchanged until 1974 when Birmingham became a metropolitan district of the newly-created West Midlands county under the West Midlands County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986 and Birmingham effectively reverted to being a unitary authority although sharing some services with other authorities in the county.

[edit] Local government

[edit] Birmingham City Council

Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in Europe with, following a reorganisation of boundaries in June 2004, 120 Birmingham City Councillors representing just under one million people, in 40 wards. The council headquarters are based at the Council House in the city centre.

Birmingham is notable for having the largest wards by population in the whole of the UK. Each ward has approximately 18,000 voters.

Birmingham City Council is a unitary authority responsible for running nearly all local services, with the exception of those run by joint boards as detailed below. The provision of certain services has in recent years been devolved to several Districts, which each have an area committee made up of councillors from that district.

[edit] Political control

The council was run by a Labour administration between 1984 and 2004, with Sir Dick Knowles as Council Leader from 1984 to 1993, followed in turn by Theresa Stewart and Sir Albert Bore. They lost overall control in 2003 but continued to run the council as a minority administration for the following year. At the election of 10 June 2004, the 120 seats were divided between the Labour, (53 councillors), Conservative (39) and Liberal Democrat (28) parties. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups then formed a governing coalition, moving Labour into opposition.

By-elections and defections in 2005 altered the distribution of seats within the council with Labour holding 46 seats, Conservatives holding 40, Liberal Democrats holding 30, the People's Justice Party holding 2 and independent councillors holding a further 2. In 2006, the People's Justice Party disbanded, with their two councillors joining the Liberal Democrats, and Councillor Ann Holtom defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats.

In the elections of 4 May 2006, when a third of the council was up for re-election, Labour lost a net total of two seats, the Conservatives made a net gain of one, the Liberal Democrats had no change, and Respect gained one. It initially appeared the BNP had won one seat from Labour in Kingstanding ward, but it soon emerged this result was caused by a counting error[1] and, following a recount, the High Court declared on 26 July 2006 that the wrongly elected BNP councillor would be replaced by Labour's Catherine Grundy[2].

The leader of the council is Conservative group leader Mike Whitby. Lib Dem group leader Paul Tilsley is Deputy Leader.

The Conservatives' main local strongholds are in the Sutton Coldfield and Edgbaston districts. 23 of their 41 councillors represent wards in these two areas. They have also recently performed well in the south-west of the city, holding all three council seats in wards such as Northfield and Bournville. Labour, who used to be as dominant at local authority level as they still are at Westminster, have seen their representation reduced almost exclusively to wards in the centre and north of the city. Their main strongholds are inner-city wards such as Ladywood, Soho and Nechells. The Liberal Democrats' strength is concentrated in the south and south-east of the city, particularly the Yardley district, where John Hemming was elected as the Liberal Democrats' only Birmingham MP in the 2005 general election.

Year Labour Conservatives Liberal Democrats Other
2006 44 41 33 2
2004 53 39 28 0
2003 57 35 23 2
2002 67 31 15 4
2000 66 28 18 5
1999 77 20 16 4

[edit] Wards

Following the June 2004 reorganisation, Birmingham's wards are:

[edit] Council constituencies

From 5 April 2004, responsibility and budgets for a number of services were devolved to 11 district committees, as part of a growing trend in the UK to use area committees for large councils. From 1 June 2006 these were reduced from 11 to 10 in order to correspond with the revised Westminster constituency boundaries, and renamed "council consituencies". Each now comprises four wards. The council constituencies are:

[edit] Parishes

Birmingham is nearly entirely unparished. Its only civil parish, New Frankley, was established in 2000 in an area transferred from Bromsgrove in 1995, which had previously been part of the Frankley parish.

[edit] Other

Other local government bodies or organisations which affect Birmingham include:

[edit] Joint county-wide services

Some local services which cover Birmingham are run jointly with the six other authorities in the West Midlands county. These county wide services are:

[edit] Regional assembly

The West Midlands Regional Assembly which covers Birmingham, is the assembly for the West Midlands region. It has a limited administrative role, such as strategic regional planning.

[edit] At Westminster

Birmingham's eleven parliamentary constituencies are represented in the House of Commons by one Conservative, one Liberal Democrat and nine Labour MPs.

Image:BirminghamNumbered.png

# Constituency MP Party
1 Birmingham, Edgbaston Gisela Stuart Labour
2 Birmingham, Erdington Siôn Simon Labour
3 Birmingham, Hall Green Stephen James McCabe Labour
4 Birmingham, Hodge Hill Liam Byrne Labour
5 Birmingham, Ladywood Clare Short Labour
6 Birmingham, Northfield Richard Burden Labour
7 Birmingham, Perry Barr Khalid Mahmood Labour
8 Birmingham, Selly Oak Dr Lynne Jones Labour
9 Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath Roger Godsiff Labour
10 Sutton Coldfield Andrew Mitchell Conservative
11 Birmingham, Yardley John Hemming Lib-Dem

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/o/v/Government_of_Birmingham_62e2.html"