Government of Birmingham: Difference between revisions

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Birmingham shown within West Midlands

This page is about the Government of Birmingham, England.

History

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.

Local government

Birmingham City Council

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

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.

Political control

The council was run by a Labour administration between 1983 and 2004. They lost control at the election of 10 June 2004, with the 120 seats being divided between the Labour, (53 councillors), Conservative (39) and Liberal Democrat (28) parties. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups then formed a coalition.

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

Joint services

The city council runs some services jointly with the six other authorities in the West Midlands county.

These include the West Midlands Police, the West Midlands Fire Service and the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive which oversees public transport.

Wards

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

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 that they might correspond with the Westminster constituency boundaries as they will apply at the next general election, and renamed "constituencies" (or "council consituencies", to distinguish them from the ten "parliamentary constituencies", which do not always have ocmmon boundaries). Each now comprises four wards. The council constituencies are:

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.

At Westminster

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

File: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

@@ Line 98: / Line 98: @@
 *[[Weoley]]
-====Districts====
+====Council constituencies====
-From 5 April 2004, responsibility and budgets for a number of services were devolved to 11 [[district committee]]s, as part of a growing trend in the UK to use [[area committee]]s for large councils. From 1 June 2006 these were reduced from 11 to 10 in order that they correspond with the new Westminster constituency boundaries. Each District now comprises four wards. The Districts are:
+From 5 April 2004, responsibility and budgets for a number of services were devolved to 11 [[district committee]]s, as part of a growing trend in the UK to use [[area committee]]s for large councils. From 1 June 2006 these were reduced from 11 to 10 in order that they might correspond with the Westminster constituency boundaries as they will apply at the next general election, and renamed "constituencies" (or "council consituencies", to distinguish them from the ten "parliamentary constituencies", which do not always have ocmmon boundaries). Each now comprises four wards. The council constituencies are:
 *[[Edgbaston]]
 *[[Erdington]]