Local Advisory Committees
| Author | Enid M. Harrison |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1953.tb01762.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1953 |
| Date | 01 March 1953 |
LocaZ
Advisory
Committees
By ENID
M.
HARRISON
Miss Harrison,
of
the Department
of
Government and Administration, University
of
Manchester, sumeys the development and usefulness
of
Local Advisory Committees.
URING
the last forty years central government departments have played
D
a direct and increasingly large part in local administration. We have
become familiar with their numerous
"
outstationed
"
offices which distribute
our ration books, pay our insurance benefits and advise us about our jobs.
One feature of this development has received little attention
;
that is, the
extensive use which has been made of local advisory committees.
Local advisory committees, consisting of persons drawn from various
sections of the local community, are associated with most of the local offices
of central government departments. In the North Western Region alone
there are some
250
committees with a total membership of between four
and five thousand. They meet regularly, either quarterly or monthly, and
some have sub-committees which meet weekly.
L.
Hagestadt in the Autumn
1952
issue of this Journal has described some of the factors which make for
success in running a local advisory committee. The time and energy devoted
to these committees prompts us to raise the more fundamental question,
what purpose do these committees really serve? Do they make the local
administration of central government departments in some way more
"
demo-
cratic
"
?
Or are their functions more specific? Are the committees relics
of some earlier form of administration,
or
have they some real value in modern
administration
?
Distribution and Membership
There are at least six sets of local advisory committees in existence
today. There are the Local Employment Committees of the Ministry of
Labour, set up to give
"
advice and assistance
"
in the management of the
Employment Exchanges. There are the Youth Employment Committees
of the same Ministry, which assist in the administration of the Youth
Employment Service. There are Post Office Advisory Committees, which
advise the Post Office on telephone, telegraph and postal services. There
are War Pensions Committees, Local Advisory Committees of the National
Assistance Board, Disablement Advisory Committees of the Ministry
of
Labour, and Local Advisory Committees of the Ministry of National In-
surance, all advising their respective departments on the services they
administer. In addition, there are certain executive committees, such as
Food Control Committees, whose function seems to be much the same
as
that
of
advisory committees
;
and there are a number of regional, as distinct
from local, committees, such as the Regional Boards for Industry.
Post Office Committees exist only in the larger commercial centres,
but all the other sets of committees are organised to cover the whole country.
Their distribution varies between different government departments, and
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