BOOK REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1954.tb01728.x |
| Date | 01 March 1954 |
| Published date | 01 March 1954 |
BOOK
REVIEWS
Local Government
in
England and
Wales
By
SIR
JOHN
MAUD
and
S.
E.
FINER
(Home University Library),
1953.
Pp. vi+230.
6s.
The English
Local Government System
By
J.
H.
WARFEN (Allen and Unwin),
1953.
Pp.
174.
12s.
6d.
THAT
two standard works
on
local govern-
ment have been thoroughly revised to
include recent changes is an important
event.
Many whose first interest in the English
local government system was aroused by
Sir
John Maud’s attractive treatment of
this admittedly complex part of our
constitutional machinery will admire the
skill with which Professor
S.
E.
Finer
has given the work a
“
new look
”
without
in
any way reducing its charm. This book
is
still
one of the best introductions to the
study of local government that can be put
into the hands
of
anyone with no special
knowledge or practical experience to help
him.
Mr.
J.
H.
Warren’s book has already
won for itself a well-deserved place as a
concise and simple description of English
local government from the administrative
point of view. The revisions have increased
its value, and the book is indispensable
to anyone who wants to know not merely
what local government is and does, but
also how it does what
it
has to do.
Of particular interest is the way in
which the
two
books deal with the more
debatable aspects of English
local
govern-
ment. Both compare the methods of
recruitment and promotion in the local
government service with those in the
civil
service. Sir John Maud and Professor
Finer see the local government service
suffering from at least three disadvantages
:
“It prevents men rising
so
easily from
the bottom of the service to the top;
it helps to keep university graduates away
from local government work
j
and
it
does
not find room for administrators of the
kind found among administrative class
civil servants” (p.
141).
It
is not
sur-
prising, though, that
Mr.
Warren, as a
former Town Clerk and the present
General Secretary of the
Local
Govern-
ment Officers’ Trade Union, sees a
number
of
advantages in the
local
govern-
ment system in which departmental heads
and chief assistants are men of proiessional
training and experience (and often of
supplementary vocational training) who
acquire administrative experience
and
reputation in moving up the ladder of
promotion (p.
128).
But the fact remains
that because of the division of the
local
government service into a professional
and a subordinate class many local govern-
ment officials, however competent and
conscientious, are denied the prospect
of
ever filling the most senior posts in their
departments. Such
a
situation can only
cause
a
sense of frustration which is
bound to prove damaging for the service
as a whole.
There is also a difference of approach
to the problem
of
the reform of lod
government structure.
Mr.
Warren, as
an ardent believer in the all-purpose type
of local government, commits himself to
the following eulogy
of
the County
Borough: “The County Borough has
the highest degree of elasticity, resource,
economy, and responsiveness to public
need; and
this
springs essentially from
that concentration of many-sided activity
under unified
local
control which is
the
characteristic of this-the most highly
developed-type of English local govern-
ment administration” (p.
41).
It
was
not therefore to be expected that Mr.
Warren would be particularly enamoured
of
the plans
of
the Local Government
Boundary Commission which would have
placed only
17
of the largest cities under
the
“
one-tier
”
system. And
it
is dis-
appointing that, after outlining the Com-
mission’s proposals,
Mr.
Warren should
content himself with the observation that
:
“
The only fair comment on them would
be the
full
comment not possible here”
(p.
158).
Sir John Maud and Professor
Finer, on the other hand, state that
the
Boundary Commission Plan merited more
attention than it received, and that
it
had
many advantages.
127
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