Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2025 to Question 32152 on Unitary councils, what the estimated population per councillor is under the new proposed unitaries with 500,000 populations.

The independent Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) is responsible for conducting Electoral Reviews of local government, which examine a council’s electoral arrangements including determining the total number of members to be elected to the council (council size) and the optimum number of electors per councillor. Local authorities are able to make a submission on council size to the LGBCE when undertaking an Electoral Review, to set out options for the number of councillors and reflecting on the number of councillors required for the local authority.

The LGBCE’s guidance states that in calculating the appropriate total number of members per council, they are seeking to propose a council size which is appropriate for the individual characteristics of the local authority in question, and will consider the following factors:

• governance arrangements of the council, how it takes decisions across the broad range of its responsibilities, and whether there are any planned changes to those arrangements;
• the council’s scrutiny functions relating to its own decision-making and the council’s responsibilities to outside bodies, and whether any changes to them are being considered; and
• the representational role of councillors in the local community and how they engage with people, conduct casework and represent the council on local partner organisations.

The LGBCE decision on council size marks the start of the formal review process for warding patterns (the number, names and boundaries of individual wards), with final electoral arrangements for the number of members implemented by an Order of Parliament.

The Electoral Review process is subject to a local consultation.