Reviews
| Published date | 01 June 1948 |
| Date | 01 June 1948 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1948.tb02646.x |
Reviews
Local
and
Regional
Government
By
G.
D.
H.
COLE.
(Cassell.)
15s.
THE
failure
so
far
of
the
vasiow local
govennment associations-and of the
Government--to wncentfate
on
the
fundamentals
of
a
system
of
local
democratic
government and to face the issues
of
reform
“
threatens to plunge Great
Britain
into
an
unduly bureaucratic
melhod
of planning
and
control,’’
and Professor
Cole’s study is most timely.
The problem
so
far
as
the
structure
of
local
govm is
concerned
(and
it seas at least to
be
common
gnund that reform
is
urgent)
is
to devise a frame-
work
which
reconciles the need in a
number
of
directions
for
largescale planning
with the preservation
of
local
public interest. The great danger is that,
aldlough
officially
t&
importance of the
local
democratic instrument
of
government is
acknowledged,
we
are apparently unable to resist the insidious arguments
of
the
technicians
who
see the problem only
in
tern
ob
the tdmkal
organisation
of
an
isolated
service, or
of
the administrator who
sees
it as merely
a
study
cd
administrative method or, worst
of
all,
of
the bureaucrat to
whom
local
govern-
ment is an agency for the local application of central policy.
The
theme
of
Professor Cole’s solution is
the
provision
on
the one
hand
of
larger local government units for the sake of
unified
planning
and,
on
the
other,
of
smaller,
more intimate,
corrpmunity
units for those services
which,
if
they
cannot
be
independently
planned,
can
be
administered-if need be
on
an
agency
basis-by the real
communities
both
within
the
peat
conurbations, the
large
tm
and
in
the countryside generally.
“Indeed,
we
an
dord
to make our
units
of
Local
Governmtnt bigger only to
the
extent to
which
we make them
smaller too.”
Local
interest,
a fundamental
of
a
successful
system of
local
democratic
governmen,
can
only
be
preserved
if
the
local
government structure is
such
as
to embrace
in
ef€ective units the local communities. The argument
has
been
advanced that the
general
expansion of modern life
with
its ease of wmmunica-
tions
and
extension
of
interests has broken down the old and narrower loyalties,
and
that the enlargement of
outlook
might well
now
be
reflected
in
the
structure
of
local gov-t. Professor Cole
strenuously
denies this
and,
indeed,
daims
as the primary units
of
local government not merely tfie village
ad
the
small
country
town,
but
the
neigbbourhood groups inside the larger towns, where the
community
“rotates
in
the orbit
of
a
larger community,” but
where
at
present
their
own
commmal
life
is
neglected
as
a
matter of local govefnment. professor
Cole
does
not
advocate the break-up of largescale administration in a service
which demands
unified
and
uniform management, and he is alive to the danger
of
an elaboration
of
the small
units
without
an
enlargetcent
of
their self-governing
responsibilities. He advmtes, therefore, that
chis
process
of
reconstituting the
small
Communities
must
be
accompanied by the development of additional services
“
suitable for small-scale management and
of
such
a
nature as to arouse the
keen,
local
interest
”
of
the
community
:
these Id communal services and the part
which
the wmunity unit might play in
the
administration
04
other services he
elaborates.
127
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