The town of
Bradford had been governed by
improvement commissioners from 1793. It was incorporated as a
municipal borough in 1847, after which it was governed by a body formally called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Bradford", generally known as the corporation or town council. When elected county councils were established in 1889, Bradford was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services and so it was made a
county borough, independent from the new
West Riding County Council. The borough boundaries were enlarged several times between 1847 and 1974. Bradford was awarded
city status in 1897, after which the corporation was also known as the city council. On 16 September 1907 the council was granted the right to appoint a
lord mayor. The modern
metropolitan district and its council were in 1974 under the
Local Government Act 1972. The new district covered the whole area of eight former districts and parts of another two, which were all abolished at the same time: •
Baildon Urban District •
Bingley Urban District •
Bradford County Borough •
Denholme Urban District •
Ilkley Urban District •
Keighley Municipal Borough •
Queensbury and Shelf Urban District (
Queensbury only;
Shelf went to
Calderdale) •
Shipley Urban District •
Silsden Urban District •
Skipton Rural District (parishes of
Addingham,
Kildwick and
Steeton with Eastburn only) Bradford's city status and lord mayoralty were transferred to the whole of the new district on the day the new system came into force. As such the council could call itself "Bradford City Council", which name is sometimes used for it in official documents and the media, but the council styles itself "City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council" instead. Between 1974 and 1986 the council was a lower tier district-level authority, with county-level functions being provided by
West Yorkshire County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986, with Bradford taking on the county council's former functions in the area. In March 2006, the UK's
Audit Commission issued a report "in the public interest" regarding concerns about the
procurement process for the acquisition of an
asset management system. The report identified weaknesses in the Council's programme management and procurement processes, which the Council accepted "without reservation". In 2012 a referendum was held on whether to introduce a
directly elected mayor for Bradford; the proposal was rejected, with 55% of the votes being against it. Since 2014 the council has been a constituent member of the
West Yorkshire Combined Authority. The combined authority has been led by the directly elected
Mayor of West Yorkshire since 2021. ==Political control==