City of Leeds - Governance

Governance

Leeds City Council is the local authority of the district. The council is composed of 99 councillors, three for each of the city's wards. Elections are held three years out of four, on the first Thursday of May. One third of the councillors are elected, for a four year term, in each election. 2004 saw all seats up for election due to boundary changes. It is currently run by a Labour administration. Before the 2011 election, the council had been under no overall control since 2004. The Chief Executive of Leeds City Council is Tom Riordan while the Leader of the Council is Councillor Keith Wakefield of the Labour Party. West Yorkshire does not have a county council, so Leeds City Council is the primary provider of local government services. The district forms part of the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England.

The district consists of the unparished area of Leeds and 31 civil parishes. These form the lowest tier of local government and absorb some limited functions from Leeds City Council in their areas. The councils of Horsforth, Morley, Otley and Wetherby are town councils. The 27 other civil parishes are:

The district is represented by eight MPs (one jointly with Wakefield), for the constituencies of Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke, Conservative); Leeds Central (Hilary Benn, Labour); Leeds East (George Mudie, Labour); Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton, Labour); Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem); Leeds West (Rachel Reeves, Labour); Pudsey (Stuart Andrew, Conservative); and Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls, Labour; three wards of this constituency are in Leeds and two in Wakefield). Leeds is within the Yorkshire and the Humber European constituency, which is represented by two Liberal Democrat, one Conservative, one Labour, one UKIP, and one BNP MEPs. The voting figures for Leeds in the European Parliament election in June 2009 were: Conservative 22.6%, Labour 21.4%, UKIP 15.9%, Lib Dem 13.8%, BNP 10.0%, Green 9.4%.