Who Runs Liverpool, and Does It Still Have a Mayor?

If you have searched for the mayor of Liverpool and come away more confused than when you started, there is a reason. Liverpool got rid of its elected city mayor in 2023, but it still has two other people with mayor in their job title, and neither of them does what the old role did.

So the direct answer: Liverpool has no directly elected city mayor. The council is run by a Leader chosen by councillors. There is still a Lord Mayor, who is ceremonial, and a Metro Mayor, who runs the wider city region rather than the city. Three titles, three different jobs, and only one of them decides anything about your bins.

This explains who holds which office, what changed in 2023 and why, and which organisation to contact when something goes wrong. Send a problem to the wrong one and you can lose days being passed between offices.

Liverpool abolished its elected city mayor in 2023

This is the part that trips people up, because the change is recent and the old headlines are still in circulation.

Liverpool adopted a directly elected city mayor in 2012. Joe Anderson held the office first. Joanne Anderson, who is not related to him, was elected in May 2021 and became the second and last person to hold it. The role ended at the May 2023 local elections, and Liam Robinson became Leader of the council on 17 May 2023 under the system that replaced it.

The change came out of a governance review. After a government-commissioned inspection reported serious failings at the council in 2021, the authority looked again at how it should be run. It dropped a planned referendum on cost grounds and ran a three-month public consultation instead.

The consultation result and the decision did not match, which is worth knowing if you remember voting in it. Turnout was around 4% of the electorate. Of those who responded, 40.9% wanted to keep an elected mayor, 32.9% preferred a committee system and 23.6% backed a council leader. Councillors then voted 51 to 18 in July 2022 to scrap the mayoralty and move to the leader-and-cabinet model. The decision binds the council for five years from the 2023 election.

The three mayors people mean

Almost every mayor question about Liverpool is really one of these three, so it helps to separate them before going further. Our companion piece on what Liverpool's mayors do takes the same three roles less formally.

Liverpool City Council

This is the one you deal with most. Liverpool City Council has 85 councillors, who represent local wards, approve the budget and set the council's main policies.

Under the leader-and-cabinet system, councillors choose the Leader and the Leader appoints cabinet members to hold service portfolios. Cllr Liam Robinson was listed as Leader when this guide was last checked. Office-holders change, so treat the council's own page as the live source rather than this one.

Council services include bins and recycling, council tax, adult and children's social care, libraries, school admissions, local planning and most streets the council maintains.

For the two services people contact the council about most, read our guides to Liverpool bin collections and what the council does with your council tax.

Your ward councillor

A ward councillor represents a small part of the city, and they are the most useful person to know when a council process has stalled on you.

They cannot collect a missed bin or fill a pothole themselves. What they can do is raise casework, question officers directly and press a department for an answer, which is a different lever from the one you get through a contact form.

Use the council's postcode search to find your ward councillor. Give them the address, the dates, any reference numbers and photographs when you ask. A request with a reference number attached moves faster than one without.

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority covers six boroughs: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral. The directly elected Metro Mayor leads it, a role held by Steve Rotheram when this guide was last checked.

Its work covers regional transport, adult skills, employment programmes and investment in housing and regeneration, with Merseytravel delivering transport work on its behalf. This is the distinction that catches people out: a complaint about a bus route or a regional fare belongs here, while a missed household bin belongs with Liverpool City Council.

If you are working out which services you can reach without a car, our guide to getting around Liverpool without a car covers the networks the Combined Authority oversees.

MPs and Parliament

Liverpool has five MPs. An MP represents a parliamentary constituency and deals with national law, government policy and casework involving bodies such as the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions or HM Revenue and Customs.

The council keeps a current list of Liverpool MPs. An MP can contact the council on a constituent's behalf, and that carries weight, but there are hard limits: they cannot overturn a local planning decision or direct a bin crew. Going to your MP about a council matter before the council process has run its course usually slows things down rather than speeding them up.

The Lord Mayor

The Lord Mayor is Liverpool's first citizen and civic representative, chosen by councillors and serving for a year. The role covers chairing full council meetings and attending civic events.

It carries none of the executive power of the Leader or the Metro Mayor, which is the single most common misunderstanding about Liverpool's local government. If you have written to the Lord Mayor about a planning application or a council service, that is the reason you did not get the answer you wanted.

The 2021 to 2024 government intervention

A government-commissioned inspection, led by Max Caller, reported serious governance failures at Liverpool City Council in 2021. The published inspection and intervention documents set out the findings and the government's response in full.

Commissioners were given powers over specified functions, including regeneration, highways, property and parts of planning. Their appointments expired on 9 June 2024. The intervention did not abolish the council or replace all elected decision-making, and it is separate from the governance review that ended the mayoralty, though both followed from the same inspection.

Who to contact about what

• Missed bin: Liverpool City Council's missed collection service.
• Pothole on a local street: Liverpool City Council.
• Motorway or trunk-road fault: National Highways.
• Bus route or regional fare: Merseytravel or the Combined Authority.
• Planning comment: Liverpool City Council's planning service, before the consultation deadline.
• National policy or a government department: your MP.
• Council casework that has stalled: your ward councillor, with the original reference number.
• A civic invitation or ceremonial request: the Lord Mayor's office.

Start with the organisation that owns the decision, and escalate to a councillor or an MP only once the first route has failed. Keep dates, replies and reference numbers as you go, because the escalation is only as strong as the paper trail behind it.

If you want the money side of this, our guide to Liverpool council tax bands for 2026/27 sets out what each band costs and how the council spends it.

Useful links and sources

• Liverpool City Council: how the council works
• Liverpool City Council: find your councillor
• Liverpool City Council: Liverpool MPs
• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
• ITV News: Liverpool councillors vote to scrap the elected mayor model
• UK Government: Liverpool City Council inspection and intervention
• National Highways: roads managed nationally