The government is also considering increasing the term of office of each council by one year, from three to four years. This will further reduce expenses because local council elections will be held less frequently – every two years, rather than every year. Each local council election costs the government Lm500,000.

Apart from the financial aspect of this measure – which is probably one of the main reasons it is being discussed – such a change is on the cards to give councils an extra year to plan and carry out their work.

At present, every batch of local councils has its election once every three years because when they were introduced in 1993, the government divided the councils into three batches. This resulted in local council elections being held every year, normally in March.

In order to save money and to make it easier for councils to plan ahead, the government is discussing the possibility of removing one batch. Rather than three groups of 23, 23 and 22, Malta would have two groups of 34 councils.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that the government was at present discussing this possibility. However, he said when replying to one of the questions, this decision would probably not affect local council elections due to be held in March next year.

The spokesman said the government has not taken any decisions on the forthcoming local council elections due in March 2005. He added that it was true internal discussions are being held on the possibility of aggregating local councils into two groups, instead of the present three.

“This will mean that the term would be longer than the present one which is of three years, and (this) would allow local councils to plan on a longer-term basis,” he said.

The spokesman insisted, however, that no decision has as yet been reached and that should discussions come to a conclusion and this change is implemented, an amendment to the existing legal framework will need to be made through Parliament.

The spokesman added that the indications show the local council elections in March 2005 will proceed as a matter of course.

If 34 local council elections are held every four years, this will mean that Malta will have a local council election on a year-on-year-off basis. In actual terms, this means that local council elections may be held in 2006 and 2010 for one batch and 2008 and 2012 for the other batch.

The government may also decide to hold them on successive years. If the council elections happen to be close to a general election, the government may – in order to save costs – postpone the local council election to coincide with the general election.

This happened earlier this year when the council elections were postponed from March to 12 June to coincide with the European Parliament election.

The first local government elections were held in 1993 and 1994 and in a span of six months, all local councils took office. Following this, the next elections were held in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Consequently, elections were held every year according to the legal mechanism established. Each year a third of the local councils in Malta and Gozo have had their elections.

Birkirkara is the council with the largest number of councillors – 13 – followed by the 11 councillors in the Qormi and Mosta councils. Between all 68 councils, there is a total of 436 councillors.