Creating Regions: The 1975 Reform of Local government in Scotland

Abstract

The new Scottish regional authorities that took office in 1975 are, with their associated districts, general purpose local governments that replace all previous governing bodies. Their creation is particularly significant because of the intense political interest produced by the wholesale reform of structures. At the same time, however, the Scottish case raises general issues such as representativeness, effective government, and the sharing of power among levels that must be confronted whenever reformers contemplate the creation of regional governments. My concern is threefold: to describe the rationale for local government reform, to examine the impact of political pressures on the initial reform proposals, and to present some early results of the Scottish local government reorganization, with special reference to planning. The data base for this paper is newspaper and news weekly reports, government documents, parliamentary debates, and a series of interviews with government officials in Scotland conducted in 1974 and 1976.