Statutes
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1973.tb01376.x |
| Date | 01 July 1973 |
| Published date | 01 July 1973 |
STATUTES
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT
1972
THE Royal Commission on Local Government in England (better
known as the Redcliff e-Maud Commission) deliberated for three
years before publishing its report in
1969
(Cmnd.
4040).
It
pro-
duced revolutionary proposals for reorganising local government
administration in the light of
“
the social, economic and tech-
nological
”
changes which had taken place in the hundred years
since the last major structural changes were made. The Labour
Government then in power published a White Paper adopting
most of the Redcliff e-Maud proposals. Before legislative effect
could be given to the changes, the government fell and the present
government took office. Much of the criticism which was directed
at the Redcliffe-Maud recommendations and the Labour proposals
was that they were
too
revolutionary, they destroyed historical
allegiances and thus undermined local identification with administra-
tion; they were likely to put the countryside into the thraldom
of
the large towns and in consequence endanger our rural heritage;
they created authorities which were too remote and gave only
derisory powers to the successors of the boroughs and districts.
Justification for these sweeping changes was mainly sought in the
necessity to carry out town planning and traffic planning on a scale
appropriate to the problems they presented.
It
is clear that for
a large number
of
local services, changes in area are largely irrele-
vant. Such functions as administration of building regulations,
refuse collection (but not disposal), street naming, food inspection
and sewerage (it would be impossible in any event
to
change
the
sewerage system to
fit
every new boundary change), would be
adequately carried out, whatever divisions were made as they have
a relatively small
“
policy
”
content and are mainly matters
of
administration of statutory codes.
Whatever the merits of the arguments for and against larger
authorities and regionalisation, the reorganisation enacted by the
present government has rejected many of the Royal Commission’s
recommendations and has largely clung to the historic structure.
Indeed, the Local Government Act
1972,
consists to a very large
extent of consolidation of existing enactments dealing with local
government organisation.
Much
of
the local authority evidence before the Royal Commis-
sion concerned itself with the need to relax the control exercised
by the central government over the working of the local council;
1
(1970),
Cmnd.
4276.
412
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