Decentralisation and Reorganisation in Local Government

Introduction The recent local government reorganisation in England, Scotland and Wales has served to resurrect past debates about the relative virtues of a single-tier or unitary structure (Royal Commission on Local Government in England, 1969; Davies, 1970). While the abolition of the metropolitan county councils in 1986 effectively created a form of unitary local government in the metropolitan areas, it was not until the Local Government Review (LGR) began its work in the 1990s that there was any detailed consideration of the future shape of local government in the 'shire' counties. Many commentators (e.g. Leach et al 1996) have with some justification seen the local government reorganisation of the 1990s as a lost opportunity an exercise devoid of a guiding logic under an inconsistent central government, eventually producing a mix of different sorts of authorities from the very small unitary Rutland (population 30,000) to the continuation of two-tier arrangements in large county areas like Northumberland. Some critics have gone further: The LGR has been severely damaging. It has probably not produced a durable structure. It has brought out some of the worst in both national and local government. Although there have been some positives, the negatives surely predominate. (Davis, 1997, p.15). The primary focus of the present article is not upon local government reorganisation itself. The discussion concentrates instead upon the theme of decentralisation within the LGR and within the new unitary councils now in place. After examining in detail various approaches to the difficult concept of decentralisation, we consider possible frameworks for research. Using some initial findings from our research on the new unitaries in England', we suggest that while reorganisation has certainly provided new opportunities for decentralist initiatives, it has also, simultaneously, pushed local government toward a new centralism.

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