Black Londoners 'under-represented in town halls despite progress since 90s'

Black Londoners continue to be under-represented in locally elected government, research shows.

Despite overall increases in minorities on councils since the early Nineties, five London boroughs still have no black councillors at all.

Across the capital, the number of black councillors is only slightly above half of what should be expected for the population size.

An analysis based on 2018 figures shows 7.8 per cent of councillors are black, compared to the black population of London at 13.4 per cent.

The highest proportion of black councillors in one borough is 25 per cent in Barking and Dagenham, followed by Brent and Newham.

However, the report by academics from Queen Mary University of London, called Getting Better, Slowly, found that Asians are now represented proportionately in town halls compared with their population size

Report authors Philip Cowley and Mercy Muroki also found that Labour had done the most significant amount of “heavy lifting” in terms of representation of black and Asian councillors in the capital.

They found 36.6 per cent of Labour councillors are black or Asian, compared with 9.4 per cent for Conservatives and 11.6 per cent for Liberal Democrats.

The report said: “The Conservatives have made great efforts to improve the ethnic diversity at a national level. There appears to be no similar success at a local level, even in cities as diverse as London.”

Overall, 26 per cent of councillors in London are Asian or black, compared with an overall population of the two ethnic groups of 32 per cent, based on data gathered by analysing faces and names of councillors elected in 2018.

In 1993 the figure was 9.4 per cent, rising to 15.7 per cent in 2013, according to surveys taken over a 26-year period.