The Herbert Report and the Values of Local Government
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| Author | Peter Self |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1962.tb00987.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE HERBERT REPORT AND THE VALUES
OF
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
PETER
SELF
London School
of
Economics and Political Science
THE Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater
London1 has made
a
considerable impression upon public and political
opinion. The Government has accepted the main principles of the report,
and proposes to introduce legislation in time to establish a new system of
local government in London by 1965. Thus the Herbert Commission has
achieved the improbable success of having drastic proposals for the re-
organization of local government quickly acted upon, even though it is
still possible for political cross-currents to sink the craft.
This achievement apart, the Herbert Report digs deep into the complex
problems of the organization of modern public services in a vast metro-
polis, and of the part which representative local bodies should play in their
administration.
My
purpose in this article is to consider the Herbert
Report within
a
framework of these wider questions, and to examine in
particular the beliefs about the character and potentialities of local
government which the report embodies. Reference will also be made to
the Government’s proposals for London government, although these are
not yet in final form and are being discussed with existing local authorities.
For the most part the rationale of the Government proposals has to be
sought in the Herbert Report.2
The Royal Commission’s Report is a synthesis of two guiding ideas.
One idea is the need for
a
local authority which could attend to the com-
mon problems and needs of the entire metropolis. This would be the
Greater London Council, gv erning a population of over eight million.
The other idea is the desirability of revitalizing local government at a
lower level through increasing the responsibilities
of
a lower tier of local
councils. These would
be
the
52
‘Greater London Boroughs’, whose forma-
tion would entail the amalgamation of many existing local authorities, but
whose powers would be far greater than these authorities (with three
exceptions3) now possess. The main changes proposed by the Government
1
Cmnd. 1164. H.M.S.O., October 1960. The Chairman was
Sir
Edwin
Herbert.
2
The
Government’s findings on the Herbert Report are
in
London Governmenf: Government
Proposals
for
Reorgunizution
(Cmnd. 1562, 1961); and
in
Circular
No.
56/61
of
the
Ministry
of
Housing
and
Local
Government
(Dec.
1961) which deals with the design
of
the new
boroughs.
3
The exceptions are the county
boroughs
of
East Ham, West Ham, and Croydon.
All
of
the
proposed
boroughs
would have the same
basic
status
and functions.
Political
Studies,
Val.
X.
No
2
(1962.146162).
PETER
SELF
147
are to reduce the number of boroughs from
52
to
34,
and to allocate
responsibility for education differently.
This
structure looks formidable by comparison with local government
elsewhere in Britain. The Greater London Council would dwarf all other
local authorities
;
while even the new boroughs, although ‘second-tier’
authorities, would have
a
higher average population than most county
boroughs. None the less, a reputable historical precedent exists in the
creation of the London County Council in
1889
and of the
28
metropolitan
boroughs ten years later.
These arrangements represented, at that time, a novel and remarkable
application of the two-tier system
to
the circumstances of a great urban
area.1 At its inception the London County Council included almost all of
the continuous urban area of the capitalz and it too was a strikingly large
local authority in relation to the circumstances of that time.
Its
1901
population of over four and a half millions was about
15
per cent. of the
population of England and Wales, which is not remarkably different from
the
18
per cent. who would reside
in
the Greater London area demarcated
by the Commission.
In one way the Commission would simply transpose the design of local
government in London county to the wider arena of present-day London.
In another way, however, it would radically alter the pattern of local
governient through a new allocation of functions. The Commission’s
proposals would dramatically reverse the decline of second-tier authorities
which has been occurring throughout England, including the county of
London. It would do this by maximizing the functions of the new boroughs,
while confining those of the Greater London Council to
a
nucleus of
essential services which would in fact
be
much fewer in number and smaller
in range than those now possessed by the LCC.
The Commission’s two guiding ideas are connected by an obvious
awareness
of
political realities. Despite the respectable precedent, its
proposed structure requires some wholesale decimation of existing institu-
tions.
Two
counties
will
disappear an4 four counties will lose substantial
areas; three towns will lose county borough status;
74
boroughs and urban
districts (more on the Government’s plan) will face various forms of
amalgamation. This drastic upheaval
is
hardly acceptable
to
the practi-
tioners of local government for the sake of one giant urban authority; but
if the giant can be kept slim, while
a
series of relatively small boroughs
proceed to wax fat, the reform
will
have done something for the cause of
Among American local government experts, the values
of
the
‘borough
plan’
(as
it
is
there called) are still widely praised
as
a
model
for
the reorganization
of
local
government
within metropolitan
areas.
9
The
area
of
the London
County
Council
was
(and
is)
the same
as
that
of
its
predecessor.
the Metropolitan
Board
of
Works,
which
was
established
in
1855.
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