Glasgow's Experience With Municipal Ownership and Operation

Abstract

The corporation of Glasgow is the representative body to which the citizens entrust its municipal government. Two separate elective bodies are appointed having charge respectively of education and poor law administration, but the Town Council (which is the corporation) has the responsibility of practically all other departments of the city government. Glasgow has for many years taken a wide and comprehensive view of the work which its governing body should carry out for its inhabitants, and thus we find that the scope of its municipal operations is probably broader and more extensive than what prevails in any other city in the IJnited Kingdom. Not only does the corporation of Glasgow undertake all the duties which naturally and necessarily have to be discharged by every city government, but it handles in addition large enterprises of a commercial character which were at one time generally, and still are quite commonly, entrusted to private enterprise and control. The work carried on by the corporation falls thus into two main divisions or groups. The first group includes all those services for which no charge is directly imposed for the services rendered, the cost being defrayed out of the rates. These include police and fire protection, roads and bridges, lighting, cleansing, public health and sanitation, infectious disease hospitals, libraries, art galleries, museums, parks, playgrounds, botanic gardens, etc. These and many other minor services are at the call and use equally of every citizen,