A FORMER Mayor of Wirral has criticised the council for lacking ethnic and gender diversity.

During a cabinet meeting on Monday ex-council leader Steve Foulkes said ethnic minorities and women were under-represented in the ranks of elected members.

He was speaking on behalf of the environment scrutiny committee, which had been tasked with conducting a review into whether there was a need to cut the number of councillors.

Tories had called for the borough's 66 elected members to be reduced by a third in order to save the cash-strapped authority more than £320,000 a year.

Councillor Foulkes, who was mayor in 2014, said: "Wirral councillors represent very good value for money.

"But we're probably a non-representational democracy, under-represented by women and by ethnic minorities."

He added there was no need to lower the number of councillors as Wirral is consistent with comparable authorities.

Echoing the thoughts of the review team council leader Cllr Phil Davies said: "It's always good to have an evidence-based report.

"Clearly we as a council are pretty-well placed in electoral quality but we should never be complacent.

"We are generally good value for money.

"The review has done good work.

"Reducing councillors from 66 to 44 is not a good way of tackling the issues we face.

"The role of councillors has changed massively over the years and councillors will have a increasing role to play."

Liscard councillor Jeanette Williamson said: "There's been cross-party acknowledgement Wirral Council is good value for money.

"Let's hope we do enough for people in the borough - and let's hope people start to give us a break."

Official statistics show around 30% of England’s 18,000 councillors are women, although among senior office-holders the proportion is far lower.

Just over 14% - or one-in-seven - of 352 English local government leaders are women, half the proportion of female MPs (29%).

This figure has declined from a peak of 16% eight years ago.

Just three council leaders are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, less than 1%.