Parish and town councils

There are currently over 10,000 parishes in England - around 8,700 of which have councils - and there are over 70,000 parish councillors.

Parish and town councils vary enormously in size, activities and circumstances. They represent populations ranging from less than 100 to up to 70,000, but the majority of them are small; around 80 per cent represent populations of less than 2,500.

Prior to 1974, parish councils were an exclusively rural phenomenon. Although the Local Government Act 1972 provided for parish councils to exist in urban areas - and there are now a number of urban parishes (both as a result of this legislation and the provisions for the creation of new parishes in the Local Government and Rating Act 1997) - the parish sector is still predominantly rural in nature.

As a tier of local government, parish and town councils are elected bodies with limited discretionary powers and rights, laid down by Parliament, to represent their communities and to provide services to them.

Several measures for strengthening the role of parishes were announced in the rural white paper: Our countryside: the future, a fair deal for rural England in November 2000.

The most prominent of these was the introduction of the concept of the 'Quality' local council, following which 'The Quality Parish and Town Council Scheme' was developed and launched earlier this year.