Trends in British Local Government

Abstract

T OHROUGHOUT the democratic world today it would appear that of necessity the most active attention is focused upon central governments. The struggle to cope with the dramatic problems of postwar reconstruction, housing, and food supply and to achieve stabilized domestic economies plays the spotlight upon cabinets and ministers of the national governments. The exigencies of war and civilian defense threatened earlier to blot out the very structure of local government. Now that the Labour Government of Great Britain has legislated and organized for two years to accomplish large measures of nationalization, the American student may well have lost sight of British local government. That local government has great vitality and is viewed with respect in Britain was demonstrated during the war. In the midst of a war for survival, powerful groups insisted upon talking about the place of local government in the British constitutional pattern. While local fire brigades and police departments might be unified in wartime for the common protection of the country, associations of local authorities wanted to know if centralization were the plan for the postwar years as well. In general, the strategy in this policy argument developed thus: the associations of local authorities insisted that the Government develop a plan for national-local relations, that even as the war was being fought a royal commission should be working on the problem. Contrary to that, Prime Minister Churchill's point of view was that there is no time for all this; that every ounce of energy must be spent in winning the war; that there will be sufficient time to consider the constitutional structure after the military operations have been successful. While the Prime Minister carried his point, the drive to force a consideration of policy never ceased. Studies and proposals dealing with short-range as well as long-term objectives came forth from several important sources. The friends of local government in Britain were most afraid of the regional commissioner system which the national government set up by orders-in-council at the very beginning of the war. Under this system the country was divided into twelve regions with the thought that full authority to conduct civil government could be delegated to the respective commissioners if the country were invaded and the national government were forced to leave the British Isles. While that eventuality never developed, important powers for coordinating civilian defense services were given the commissioners, especially in the southern regions where the threat of invasion remained and from which the Allied operations against the Continent were launched. There was some