Local government or authorities oversee the running of services within their areas and have to deliver them in the most economic, efficient and effective way possible. They also have to look continually to the future and what will be required as well as improve what is already available. Some aspects of their work has to be done by law while other aspects are discretionary which means the authority can provide a service if it wishes.

About 2 million people work for local authorities. These include the people who register births, marriages and deaths, the council tax collectors, police, firefighters, dustbin collectors and teachers. The running of an authority is overseen by elected councillors who are voted in by the local voting public.

The structure of local government is varied. There are many types of boroughs and councils.

All councillors are responsible to their local communities who elect them to the council. They represent their communities in proposals to improve their areas and contribute to major decisions that will affect their areas.

Councillors deal with individual problems as well as connecting people to council departments to deal with specific problems. Depending on the issue, the councillor may get involved in the matter themselves.

There are executive and non-executive councillors.

The local councillor will offer advice or suggest the person or department to contact to get a problem solved or query answered.

Councillors are elected by the members of their community. Councillors come from a wide range of backgrounds but must be over 21 years of age and must live or work in the area they wish to be elected in. If a person wants to be elected to a parish or town council, they must live within 3 miles of the council.

A person is not able to stand to be elected if they are already being paid as working for the council, they are bankrupt or they have been in prison for three months or more within the five years before standing for election.

Councillors are usually elected for a term of four years. The different types of councils hold their elections at different times and many councils do not have all their council members are up for election at the same time. In May 2000, there were 19,894 councillors in England.