Campaign to attract talent to town halls 

A London-wide campaign to get more people to stand as councillors in the next local elections is to be launched on Tuesday 24th June. (County Hall, 10am)

The idea behind the Be a Councillor campaign is to interest new and exciting talent more representative of their local communities into the council chamber where they can play a role in delivering vital public services.

While London performs better than most UK regions in terms of councillor diversity, people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, women and younger people are not proportionately represented in the capital's council chambers.

London has 1,861 councillors and less than one in five of them describe themselves as belonging to a non-white ethnic group. This is despite a third of London's population describing themselves in the same way.

Similarly women, who make up more than half of the capital's population, hold less than a third of council seats in London.