We all love to hate authorities (until we are part of them that is!).
But whatever the Council you hope to be elected to represent your Ward or Division on, it is essential that you get to know the role of the Democratic Services or Electoral Services Department at your local District Level Authority, which takes responsibility for managing ALL Elections in your area.
Your local District Level Authority or Council, will usually but not always be known as a Borough, District or City Council, unless it is a Unitary Authority, in which case it could be a County or perhaps a Metropolitan Borough Council or something similar.
This will be the same authority which collects the Council Tax for residents in the area where you are planning to become a Candidate.
All the information you need about who to contact, the name of the Monitoring Officer (which is very important if you should experience a problem during your official campaign) and the timetables you will need to keep too will be available on this Council’s website.
The Council’s Website will almost certainly also provide the address where you will need to attend to submit your candidate papers, provide information on how and when you can obtain them, and advise upon how you make an appointment to do so (All of your completed forms will need to be checked to make sure they are ‘valid’).
It is very easy to think of the Council as being in some way against you. But the officers you will meet and interact with as a Candidate may well be the same as the ones you will have lots of dealings with if you successfully become a member. As such, it is in your mutual interests to have a positive and professional relationship.
Whenever the next Election for your Parish, Town, Borough, District, City, Unitary or above, if you are going to run, you must keep up to date with all the information that your local Democratic Services Department makes available.
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