Introduction: The Unintended Costs and Benefits of New Management Reform for British Local Government

Abstract

What happened to British local government during the period of Conservative government from 1979 to 1997 was in many respects a brutal illustration of power politics. The funding system was reformed to provide central government with a considerable (and probably unprecedented) level of control over spending. Various functions and responsibilities were stripped away from local authorities or organised in a way that obliged local authorities to work in partnership with other public and private agencies in the carrying out of the functions. The structure of local government itself was reorganised through the abolition of the Greater London council and the six metropolitan counties in the mid-1980s and later the Inner London Education Authority. In the mid-1990s there was a 'single-tier' reorganisation imposed in Scotland and Wales and a more prosaic but nevertheless substantial reform in England. By May 1997 there were over 80 fewer local authorities in Britain than in 1979. The spending, functions and structure of local government had been restructured at the behest of a central government capable of imposing its will against considerable but limited resistance from local authorities.