Council structure
We're a medium sized unitary council, with a wide range of responsibilities, delivering services ranging from education, social care and housing, to managing the highway, registering births and deaths, and keeping the borough clean, amongst many others.
We have five directorates that work together to deliver the council's key priorities.
Directorate | Services |
Adults and Communities |
Adult and Wellbeing Stronger, Safer, Healthier Communities |
Children’s Services |
Education, Early Start and Prevention Children’s Social Care and Safeguarding |
Place |
Regeneration and Culture Environment and Transport |
Public Health |
Public Health 0-19 Service |
Core Services |
Legal Services Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications Finance Governance, Member Services and Business Support Customer, Information and Digital Services |
Our priorities
We have five new priorities which are supported by 12 outcomes:
- Healthy Barnsley
- Learning Barnsley
- Growing Barnsley
- Sustainable Barnsley
- Enabling Barnsley is our underlying priority to ensure that our council is modern, inclusive, efficient, productive and high-performing.
Councillors and Cabinet
Barnsley has 63 councillors, elected in thirds every four years. They're democratically accountable, and have a duty to the whole community, including those who didn't vote for them. All councillors meet together as a council to set overall policy and budget.
The Cabinet is the main elected member decision-making body of the council. It's made up of the Leader of the Council, plus seven other members appointed by the leader, each with the title Cabinet Spokesperson.
Each spokesperson is responsible for several council services, known as their portfolio. As well as leading discussions in Cabinet about services in their portfolio, they have the power to take some routine decisions themselves.