It is getting towards the time of year when people head to the polls to vote on issues that mean most to them locally.
Local council elections will be taking place on Thursday, May 5, with councils and seats up for grabs across the whole country. These are important elections where people can decide who they want in office and in charge of important local issues.
They could also give an important indication of how voters are feeling towards the national parties. It will be interesting to see how the Conservative Party is impacted by the party-gate scandal and other recent controversies.
Many Merseyside eyes will be focussed on Wirral Council, which remains under no overall control, with other key votes taking place across at councils across our region as well. But one place where there will be no votes cast is Liverpool. The city had been due to hold elections in 2022, but that was before the damning Max Caller inspection report changed everything when it was published this time last year.
READ MORE: Government confirms major changes for Liverpool and its council
That report came after a four month inspection of the city council and lifted the lid on a catalogue of shocking failings and an atmosphere of intimidation within some of the council's key departments. The resulting inspection report saw the government take the major step of appointing commissioners to oversee work in those troubled departments for a three year period.
But the arrival of the commissioners was not the only major result of Max Caller's damning council inspection. The government also ordered some fundamental changes to how the council and city is run and how its politics and elections are organised.
As part of the council's improvement plan, it is currently in the process or reorganising the city's electoral boundaries. The authority has also agreed to reduce the number of elected councillors in the city from 90 to 85 and is working on a radical redrawing of the city's electoral ward map.
And another of the key changes concerns when the city holds elections. Previously, a third of the council's seats would be up for election in three of every four years. But in his inspection report, Mr Caller suggested this meant the council was almost constantly in election mode and less able to focus on good outcomes for residents.
As such, the council has now moved to a system of all out elections - where every single seat is up for grabs - once every four years. The first of these all out votes will be held next year, meaning there will be no Liverpool Council elections this May.
There is also the not-so-small matter of the city's governance system to iron out before those all out elections next year. The council is currently embarking on a city-wide consultation that could see the current mayoral model removed altogether.
