# Staffordshire County Council

Staffordshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Staffordshire, England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes Stoke-on-Trent.
The council has been under Conservative majority control since 2009. It meets at County Buildings in Stafford and has its main offices nearby at Staffordshire Place on Tipping Street.

## History

Elected county councils were created in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over many administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions. The four boroughs of Hanley, Walsall, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton were considered large enough to provide their own county-level services and so they were made county boroughs, independent from the new county council. Conversely the city of Lichfield, which had been a self-governing county corporate since 1553 with its own sheriffs and quarter sessions, was not considered large enough to be a county borough and so it was included in the county council's area. The county council was elected by and provided services to the part of the county outside the county boroughs, which area was termed the administrative county.
The 1888 Act also said that urban sanitary districts which straddled county boundaries were to be placed entirely in the county which had the majority of their population, and so Staffordshire gained the parts of Burton upon Trent which had been in Derbyshire and the parts of Tamworth which had been in Warwickshire, but lost the parts of Dudley which had been in Staffordshire to Worcestershire.
The first elections to the county council were held in January 1889. The council formally came into being on 1 April 1889, on which day it held its first official meeting at the Shire Hall in Stafford, the courthouse which had served as the meeting place for the quarter sessions which preceded the county council. The first chairman of the council was Dudley Ryder, 3rd Earl of Harrowby, a Conservative peer and former member of parliament.
Additional county boroughs were later created at Burton upon Trent in 1901 and Smethwick in 1907, removing them from the administrative county. In 1910 the administrative county ceded Burslem, Fenton, Longton, Stoke-upon-Trent and Tunstall to the new County Borough of Stoke on Trent, which also took in the previous county borough of Hanley. Territory was also transferred on a number of occasions from Staffordshire to the neighbouring county borough of Birmingham, which gained Harborne in 1891, Handsworth in 1911, and Perry Barr in 1928. In 1966 the administrative county ceded eleven urban districts and one municipal borough in the Black Country area at the southern end of the county to become parts of county boroughs.
Staffordshire was reconstituted as a non-metropolitan county in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. The county council regained authority over Burton and Stoke, but lost the Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District to the new West Midlands county (which also covered the county boroughs in the area that were already outside the administrative county). Stoke-on-Trent regained its independence from the county council in 1997, becoming a unitary authority.

## Governance

Staffordshire County Council provides county-level services. District-level services are provided by the area's eight district councils:
* Cannock Chase District Council
* East Staffordshire Borough Council
* Lichfield District Council
* Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council
* South Staffordshire District Council
* Stafford Borough Council
* Staffordshire Moorlands District Council
* Tamworth Borough Council
Much of the county is also covered by civil parishes, which form a third tier of local government.

### Political control

The council has been under Conservative majority control since 2009.
Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows:
| Party in control | Years |
| Labour | 1974–1977 |
| Conservative | 1977–1981 |
| Labour | 1981–2009 |
| Conservative | 2009–present |

### Leadership

The leaders of the council since 1974 have been:
| Councillor | Party | From | To |
| Jim Westwood | Labour | 1 Apr 1974 | 8 May 1977 |
| Rex Roberts | Conservative | May 1977 | May 1981 |
| Bill Austin | Labour | May 1981 | May 1996 |
| Terry Dix | Labour | May 1996 | 17 May 2007 |
| John Taylor | Labour | 17 May 2007 | 7 Jun 2009 |
| Philip Atkins | Conservative | 18 Jun 2009 | 23 Jul 2020 |
| Alan White | Conservative | 23 Jul 2020 | |

### Composition

Following the 2021 election and subsequent by-elections and changes of allegiance up to December 2023, the composition of the council was:
| Party | Party | Councillors |
| | Conservative | 55 |
| | Labour | 5 |
| | Independent | 2 |
| Total | Total | 62 |
The next election is due in 2025.

## Elections

Since the last boundary changes in 2013 the council has comprised 62 councillors representing 60 electoral divisions, with each division electing one or two councillors. Elections are held every four years.

## Premises

The council has its main offices at Staffordshire Place, a modern office building on Tipping Street in Stafford. The building was purpose-built for the council in 2011.
When the county council was first created in 1889 it met at the Shire Hall in the Market Place in Stafford, which had been completed in 1798. Shortly after the council's creation it built itself a new meeting place and offices at County Buildings on Martin Street, adjoining the side of Shire Hall, with the new building opening in 1895. The council later outgrew County Buildings, and by the early 21st century its offices were spread across seventeen different buildings. The construction of Staffordshire Place in 2011 allowed for the consolidation of most of the council's offices at the one site, although the nearby County Buildings was retained by the council, with the council chamber there continuing to serve as the council's meeting place.