Royal Commission On Local Government in Greater London - The Work of The Commission

The Work of The Commission

The Commission held 114 meetings, heard oral evidence on 70 occasions, and asked nearly 16,000 questions. The Commission was also able to draw on the work of the Greater London Group of the London School of Economics, which had carried out an extensive survey on local government in London.

The evidence heard by the Commission was contradictory: that of the Ministry of Local Government and Housing depicted a system that was breaking down while that given by the local authorities vigorously defended the status quo.

In the absence of consensus, the Commission drew up two criteria by which to guide its recommendations:

• Efficiency and economy in the use of human and financial resources
• The maintenance of healthy local democracy

By following these criteria a two-tier system was envisaged, with a regional authority for “technical” services and smaller local authorities for “personal” services. Much of the Commission’s deliberations involved trying to find an optimum size for the sub-units of the proposed system. The general agreement of witnesses was that a basic “many-purpose” unit should have a population of between at least 250,000, with many favouring a range of 500,000 to 1,500,000. It was stressed by council officers and teachers that authorities would need to be of a sufficiently large size to provide promotion prospects and attract good staff.

The Commission, however, favoured smaller units. This was due to their second criterion: large authorities, it was felt, would be remote from their citizens. It was also hoped that smaller local authorities would encourage greater participation in local elections. The Commission displayed a dislike of “bigness”, in particular describing the London County Council as “massive”, “inhuman” and “monolithic”.

Three criteria were used by the commission to consider if places on the periphery should be included in the review area. They were extent to which a locality was independent and freestanding; the closeness of links with the capital; and the outlook of the district towards or away from London. In 1960 the commission deleted Potters Bar and all parts of Hertfordshire aside from Cheshunt, Barnet and East Barnet from the review area.