Over the rest of summer and the autumn, I’ll be doing a series on local government (a revisit to a topic covered on the old Oggy Bloggy Ogwr in 2013) – both in a devolved context and in the context of an independent Wales.
To kick things off, here’s how local government has developed and evolved in Wales.
The Local Government Act 1972 is probably the most influential law relating to local government in Wales. It continues to regulate and govern many aspects of how councils are run fifty years later.
Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, local government took on increasingly complex and resource-intensive responsibilities – particularly in education, housing and social services – while improvements to communications and transport links lend themselves towards fewer, “more efficient” councils.
As mentioned, the legacy rural and urban district councils from the 1890s remained in place, as did the increasingly outdated 13 administrative counties. The counties hadn’t changed since the Laws in Wales Acts but their characteristics had changed dramatically in that time. The now industrialised old Glamorgan grew to a population of around 1.3million in the 1960s compared to 40,000 in Merionethshire (sic).
Local Government Commission for Wales
The Local Government Act 1958 made provision for a Commission – chaired by Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans – to review and make recommendations on the future of local government in Wales. This was part of a wider range of reforms across parts of the UK.
The Commission’s final report – published in 1963 – is seemingly only available in archives now, but their conclusions and recommendations sound familiar. There was concern about poor turnout in local elections, the need to balance locally-focused councils with economies-of-scale/”more efficient” (i.e. bigger) councils, as well as discussion over the local authority map1.
The Commission’s main recommendation, unsurprisingly, was a cut in the number of county councils from 13 to 7 – though a later UK Government white paper suggested cutting it to 5 and replacing the urban and rural district councils with up to 36 district councils.
The 1972 Act & Two-Tier Authorities
In the end, there was a compromise between the Commission’s recommendations and the UK Government’s white paper.
As the 1972 Act developed, the UK Government’s position shifted in line with the Commission from five counties to seven and, finally, eight. The most contentious proposals seemed to revolve around the division of the old Glamorgan, with the creation of South Glamorgan – the modern day Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan – being Tory-sponsored (because they stood a chance of running it).
Below the new counties – creating a two-tier system of local government – were 37 district and borough councils. The Act set out a clear division in the functions and responsibilities between the counties and the districts/boroughs.
As non-metropolitan counties, the eight county councils were responsible for areas such as education, libraries, trading standards, strategic planning, transport strategy and social services.
The districts were responsible for waste collection and waste management, planning permission/development control, licensing, housing, environmental health, cemeteries & crematoria and collection of rates (the precursor to council tax). However, counties could delegate authority to a district council to carry out certain functions on their behalf as an agent if the district council was deemed capable of handling it.
In some areas, counties and districts had concurrent/joint powers (such as highways, public transport, culture and tourism), while some responsibilities were taken out of local government altogether to specialised boards (healthcare, water services).
Policing and fire services had long been run by dedicated fire and police authorities (until the creation of Police & Crime Commissioners in 2012), which drew members from both county and district councils. This arrangement continued. National parks authorities weren’t created until 1995.
Many of the provisions in the 1972 Act around the management of councils – procedures, statutory services, statutory officers etc. – remain in force. One of the big differences now compared to then is that councils were run by executive committees rather than a Cabinet, with each committee making decisions not just scrutinising them.
The 1972 Act also clarified the position of town and community councils in law. The whole of Wales is divided into communities (the English equivalent being a civil parish), but despite there being around 880 communities in Wales, only around 730 actually have a town or community council as of 2022.
1. Jones, A (2018). “Are we learning from the old? A case study of Welsh local government restructuring”. Available at: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2086/16678/Paper%20-%20Are%20we%20learning%20from%20the%20old.docx?sequence=1
