A new commission will examine the barriers that prevent a wider range of candidates from standing at local council elections.

The Commission on Local Councillors will seek to define issues that discourage people from taking on jobs as councillors, such as difficulty getting time off work, balancing the role with home responsibilities, pay, and restrictions on who can become a councillor.

It will also ask what more can be done to attract candidates from under-represented groups such as women, younger people and black and minority ethnic (BME) communities.

Currently just four per cent of councilors are BME and the average age of a councilor is 58.

Commission chair and former Leader of Camden Council Dame Jane Roberts said: "Councillors shape our daily lives which is why the Commission’s work to examine ways of encouraging a wider range of people to be able to be elected as councillors … is so important.

"Our work will crucially look at the barriers that prevent every day people becoming councillors", she added.

The commission will collect evidence from present and former councillors as well as a range of other public sector workers including school governors, tenant representatives and employees from health bodies and voluntary and community organisations.

Local council elections take place across the UK on May 3.