Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council: local authority assessment

How we assess local authorities

Assessment published: 1 July 2026

About Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Demographics

The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England. The main town is Barnsley, and other notable towns include Cudworth, Wombwell, Worsbrough, Penistone, and Hoyland. The west of the borough is more rural than the east, with the majority of residents residing in the urban/industrial east, which covers approximately 16% of the borough’s footprint. The borough is home to 248,449 people. It has an Index of Multiple Deprivation score of 9 (1 is the least deprived, 10 is the most deprived), placing it 30th out of 153 local authorities for deprivation in England.  

The population grew by 5.8% between 2011 and 2021 (Office for National Statistics, June 2022), with 20.55% aged 0 to 17 years, 59.49% aged 18 to 64 years, and 19.96% aged 65 years or more. The distribution of age in Barnsley closely mirrors that of England overall, with no age group significantly over or underrepresented. The vast majority of people in Barnsley identified as White, making up 96.88% of the population. 0.70% of the population were Black, Black British, Caribbean or African, 0.94% were Asian, Asian British, 0.94% identified themselves as of ‘mixed or multiple’ heritage, and 0.55% identified themselves as Other. The borough had a much larger White population than England overall.

The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is part of the South Yorkshire Integrated Care System (ICS), alongside the local authorities of Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield.  

The local authority is Labour led with Labour majority control. In 2024, Labour retained an overall majority of 48 out of 63 seats. Since 2014, the local authority has been a constituent member of the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, led by the directly elected Mayor of South Yorkshire since 2018.

Financial facts  

• In the previous financial year, the local authority estimated its total budget would be £403,811,000.00. Its actual spend for that year was £392,185,000.00, which was £11,626,000.00 less than estimated.
• The local authority estimated it would spend £107,178,000.00 of its total budget on adult social care in 2023/24. Its actual spend was £77,248,000.00 on adult social care, which was £29,930,000.00 less than estimated. In 2023/24, 19.70% of the total budget was spent on adult social care.
• In 2023/24, the local authority has raised the full adult social care precept of 2%.  
• Approximately 3725 people were accessing long-term adult social care support and approximately 765 people were accessing short-term adult social care support in 2023/24 from the local authority. 

This data is reproduced at the request of the Department of Health and Social Care. It has not been factored into our assessment and is presented for information purposes only.