History of Local Government in England - The Evolution of Modern Local Government (1832-1974) - The Local Government Act (1972)

The Local Government Act (1972)

Further information: Local Government Act 1972

The reforms arising from the Local Government Act of 1972 resulted in the most uniform and simplified system of local government which has been used in England. They effectively wiped away everything that had gone before, and built an administrative system from scratch. All previous administrative districts - statutory counties, administrative counties, county boroughs, municipal boroughs, counties corporate, civil parishes - were abolished.

The aim of the act was to establish a uniform two tier system across the country. Onto the blank canvas, new counties were created to cover the entire country; many of these were obviously based on the historic counties, but there were some major changes, especially in the north. The tiny county of Rutland was joined with Leicestershire; Cumberland, Westmorland and the Furness exclave of Lancashire were fused into the new county of Cumbria; Herefordshire and Worcestershire were joined to form Hereford & Worcester; the three ridings of Yorkshire were replaced by North, South and West Yorkshire, along with Humberside. The act also created six new 'metropolitan' counties, modelled on Greater London, to specifically address the problems of administering large conurbations; these were Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne & Wear, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Midlands. The new counties of Avon (the city of Bristol, and north Somerset), Cleveland (the Teesside area) and Humberside were designed with the idea of uniting areas based on river estuaries.

Each of the new counties was then endowed with a county council, to generally administer the county, and provide certain county-wide services, such as policing, social services and public transport. The Act substituted the new counties "for counties of any other description" for purposes of law. The new counties therefore replaced the statutory counties created in 1888 for judicial and ceremonial purposes (such as lieutenancy, custodes rotulorum, shrievalty, commissions of the peace and magistrates' courts); and replaced administrative counties and county boroughs for administrative purposes.

The second tier of the local government varied between the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The metropolitan counties were divided into metropolitan boroughs, whilst the non-metropolitan counties were divided into districts. The metropolitan boroughs had greater powers than the districts, sharing some of the county council responsibilities with the metropolitan county councils, and having control of others that districts did not (e.g. education was administered by the non-metropolitan county councils, but by the metropolitan borough councils). The metropolitan boroughs were supposed to have a minimum population of 250,000 and districts 40,000; in practice some exceptions were allowed for the sake of convenience.

Where municipal boroughs still existed, they were dissolved. However, the charter grants made to those boroughs (where transfer had not already occurred), were generally transferred to the district or metropolitan borough which contained area in question. Districts which succeeded to such powers were permitted to style themselves 'borough councils' as opposed to 'district councils' - however, the difference was purely ceremonial. The powers of some municipal boroughs were transferred to either civil parish councils, or to charter trustees; see Borough status in the United Kingdom for details.

The act also dealt with civil parishes. These were maintained in rural areas, but those existing in large urban areas were abolished. Conversely, the Act actually provided the legislation such that the whole country could be divided into parishes if this was desirable at some point in the future. However, at the time urban parishes were strongly discouraged. However, since 1974, several urban areas have applied for and received parish councils. Much of the country remains unparished, since the parish councils are not a necessary part of local government, but exist to give civic identity to smaller settlements.

The new system of local government came into force on 1 April 1974, but in the event the uniformity proved to be short lived.