How to become a councillor
There are around 500 principal local authorities in the UK. Each council is responsible for providing its own local services. These range from education, transport and street cleaning to social services and housing. To do this, they employ more than 2 million people and are directed by 22,000 councillors.
Councillors are elected to represent an individual geographical unit on the council, known as a ward or division. They are elected by the public every four years. Some councils elect all councillors in one go, others choose to elect one third at a time. This is because most wards have three councillors.
Find out more about becoming a councillor or more generally, getting into Local Government
