Local Government Areas of Scotland - 1930 To 1975

1930 To 1975

By 1928 Scotland had 1,298 different local authorities, many of them overlapping. In November the Scottish Office issued a bill to reform local government: this sought to abolish 1,064 of the various bodies, leaving only 33 county councils and 201 burgh councils. Burghs (other than the counties of cities) were to be divided into two classes: large burghs and small burghs. Large burghs were to gain considerable powers from the county councils. Small burghs, conversely, were to cede most of their duties to the county councils.

The original bill was altered in the course of passage through parliament. In response to protests that the abolition of both parish councils and district committees left a gap in the system, the landward part of each county was to be divided into districts, governed by councils consisting partly of the county councillors for the area and partly of elected district councillors. The final act also provided for the combination of a number of neighbouring small burghs, and paired Kinross-shire and Perthshire and Nairnshire and Moray into "combined counties". The individual counties and county councils continued to exist in these areas, but a joint county council became the principal local authority.

Following the changes, which came into effect in 1930, the following were the local government areas into which Scotland was divided:

• The four counties of cities
• 29 counties
• 2 combined counties
• Large burghs (those with a population of 20,000 or more, plus Arbroath)
• Small burghs
• Landward districts

This system was restated in the consolidating Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947. The number of small burghs increased and the number of districts declined over the time period. Neither the 1929 or 1947 legislation contained a procedure by which a small burgh could become a large burgh on reaching sufficient population. Accordingly, only one new large burgh was formed at East Kilbride, which required the passing of a local act of parliament in 1967.