English local government

Front matter

S 5CIEHTIFIC SERIES

RCY^SHLEY.MIyi:

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Contents

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PREFATORY NOTE v

CHAP.

Chapter I Introductory

"Local government" means, in England, the discharge by the inhabitants of a locality, generally through elected representatives, of the powers and duties within that area with which they have been invested by Parliament, or Avhich in rarer cases devolve upon them at Common Law. In the exercise of their responsibilities they may be left altogether uncontrolled except by the legislature; but more usually they are subjected to the authority of departments of the central government — authority which varies in extent from the strictest and most minute control to mere guidance and suggestion.

The advantages of this division of the labour of public administration between central and local authorities are obvious. The tasks undertaken by the modem state are so great and various that the attempt to accomplish them all by means of central departments and professional ofKcials alone is doomed inevitably to failure ; all experience shows that sooner or later a breakdown is certain. Moreover, so long as a uniform minimum of ethciency is attained for the whole country, it is for many public services desirable that varieties of local conditions, desires, and needs should be considered ; and no central department alone can have the requisite knowledge for this, or be sure that its local professional agents are not misleading it. That end is best secured, and undue centralisation is avoided, by allowing to the inhabitants of a locality, through their elected representatives, as large a share as possible in the conduct of public services; and this has the additional advantages that it arouses local interest and gives to a considerable number of persons some training in the conduct of affairs. But it must not be forgotten that the work of all authorities, central and local, is " state action," though we commonly use this term only for the activities of the central government. There is no difference in principle between central and local action — the latter is only a particular branch of the former, developed for the special reasons which have been indicated.

If we exclude certain matters which are evidently unsuited to decentralised administration, such as the army, navy, and post-office, it is impossible to make any lists of services which can and can not be entrusted to local authorities. The practice of civilised states differs greatly, because of differences of purpose, of economic conditions, of social organisation ; and Great Britain holds a unique position among the states of Europe in respect to the amount of work done and independence enjoyed by the localities. Similarly it is idle to attempt to lay down any general rules as to the amount of central

INTRODUCTORY 9

control advisable for decentralised services ; each case must be considered separately, and even for one and the same service the amount may vary from time to time and from place to place. The aim must be to secure a minimum standard of attainment and efficiency, without diminishing local initiative and interest ; and for this reason it may in some instances be wiser merely to encourage and guide action, instead of endeavouring to enforce it.

The nineteenth century witnessed in England a great increase of the functions of the state, and an extraordinary development of local government. The reform of Parliament reacted upon the whole of national administration, and the great constructive changes in the formation and powers of local authorities followed close upon the extensions of the parliamentary franchise. The first of these movements was in the decade 1830-1840. The Reform Act of 1832 was only part of a general awakening ; it was followed rapidly by the first parliamentary grant for National Education (1833), the reorganisation of Toor Law administration (1834), and of the Municipal Corporations (1835), and the beginnings in 1838 of the demand for sanitary legislation. This last, due in part to the action of the Poor Law Commissioners, and in part to the appearance in England of Asiatic cholera, was the commencement of that ever-growing recognition of the needs of national sanitation which was to be one of the most potent causes of the development of local authorities. The Reform Act of 1807 did not bring such sweeping changes in its train.

but it was followed by the erection in 1870 of something approaching to a national system of education, and by great improvements in sanitary administration in 1872 and 1875. And meanwhile the constant discovery of new administrative needs had produced a great number of authorities of various kinds, some with general powers and others authorised to deal only with certain particular matters ; and the piecemeal procedure of half a century had resulted by 1888 in a " chaos of overlapping areas and conflicting authorities.""

The grant of the parliamentary franchise to the agricultural labourers in 1884 brought, four years later, the long-contemplated overthrow of the old county administrative system, hitherto in the hands of the Justices of the Peace alone, and the establishment of elected county councils, followed in 1894 by the district and parish councils. The so-called obd hoc system of independent authorities for single purposes doubtless had advantages in some cases, but the tendency at present (most strongly marked by the recent abolition of school boards) is towards the concentration of powers in the hands of a small number of important bodies which because of the extent and variety of their functions command general attention and interest. The activity of the local authorities has constantly increased, until there is scarcely any part of human life which in some way or another they do not touch; and although there is at present something of an agitation against what is known as " municipal trading," there is no likelihood that the activity of our local administrators will as a whole

INTRODUCTORY 11

be curtailed — rather, everything points to further and continuous growth. It is characteristic of the Enghsh system that the legislature (unlike continental Parliaments) has never attempted to lay down an arbitrary definition of the sphere of action of local authorities not established solely for specific purposes ; and that, on the contrary, the powers which the chief authorities possess of promoting legislation has given them the fullest possible scope for the exercise of their own initiative and energy.

Meanwhile there has been a persistent advance of central control. In the legislation after 1832, two conflicting movements were apparent ; the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 subjected the new Poor Law authorities to rigorous control by a central department, whilst the Municipal Corporations Act of the following year gave to the town councils a very full measure of autonomy, and reduced the administrative control over them to a very low point. When between 1848 and 1854 an attempt was made to set up a General Board of Health, which should be as powerful as the Poor Law Board was in its sphere, the result was an absolute failure. But since 1870 the tendency has been entirely in one direction, and the policy of central control, more or less strict, has gained the upper hand. This has been due chiefly to the recognition of the fact that in the interest of the whole community it is necessary to endeavour to secure the maintenance by local authorities of at least a minimum level of cfliciency ; and, consciously or unconsciously, we have been striving to attain this by the extension of the regulative, inspecting, and advisory powers of tlie central departments, and by the method of grants-in-aid from the National Exchequer. In the opening years of the twentieth century, in spite of some signs of reaction in certain directions, everything points to the conclusion already stated, that the growth of decentralised state action (in the form of the municipalisation of public services, and in other ways) will continue ; and with that, for the maintenance of a national standard, there must come a still further increase in the control of the central over the local authorities.

But in spite of this tendency, English local government is not in any sense bureaucratic. This is perhaps the most characteristic feature of our system as compared with the institutions of our continental neighbours; the local authorities are councils of ordinary citizens entirely dependent upon the electors, and the permanent officials are only their servants, exercising an influence based, not as in continental countries (and especially Prussia) on legal position, but simply on knowledge and experience. In fact, local government in England is lay administration tempered by professional advice ; whilst to a great extent in continental Europe it is professional administration tempered slightly by lay criticism. Our central departments have no such wide-reaching power of enforcing obedience on the part of the local authorities by administrative processes as is possessed by the bureaucracies of France and Prussia. It is true that they have it partially in the case of Education and Police, for which they can withhold the Exchequer

INTRODUCTORY 13

grants if the work is not done to their satisfaction, and in some Pubhc Health matters where there is actual default ; but ordinarily all they can do is to seek the aid of the Courts of Justice if the local administrators will not carry out the law and will not listen to rerftonstrances. The courts so invoked are the ordinary judicial tribunals of the land ; they are not, as in those countries which have a special system of administrative law, a set of tribunals constituted in a particular way, and working generally by procedure and rules of law, which differ from those of the ordinary courts, and are intended to safeguard the official against any personal responsibility for acts done by him in his official character. And so in England the individual citizen, in any dispute with the authorities, goes for protection or for remedies to the ordinary tribunals, and before these the various authorities and officials cannot invoke any legal privileges.

The predominance of the unprofessional administrator, the ever-widening range of the sphere of local government, the subordination of all authorities to the ordinary law of the land applied by the ordinary courts, and the limited extent of the merely administrative control which the central departments can exercise over the local councils — these are then the most characteristic traits of the system of local government which we are now to examine in detail.

Chapter II

Before we proceed to examine the constitution of the various areas and authorities established in England and Wales for the purposes of local government, it will be convenient to set out the general scheme under recent enactments — the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894, the London Government Act of 1899, and the Education Acts, 1902 and 1903. It is as follows : —

The Administrative County.

The County Borough {i.e. a municipal borough not subject to, and not represented upon, a county council).

The Municipal Borough The Urban District The Rmal District

The distinction between these three is not according to population — it is due in many cases merely to historical accidents.

'The former exists, so far as administration is concerned, simply for certain poor law purposes and has no autonomy ; the latter is a real local government area.

Within the last four areas the council of the administrative county of which they form part has

The Parish- Rural

-Urban and powers and duties, and it also exercises an amount of supervision which is far greater in the rural portions than in the urban districts, and is very slight, and in fact hardly exists at all, in the municipal boroughs.

The Poor Law Union is an area for the relief of the poor ; it is commonly a group of parishes not necessarily coextensive with any other area, and may be entirely urban, entirely rural, or mixed.

The Metropolis has a special organisation, which must be considered separately.

In addition to the authorities of these areas, there are a number of miscellaneous bodies which are not universal. Such are Port Sanitary Authorities (sometimes identical with town or urban district councils) ; Harbour and Dock Authorities (also often identical with town councils) ; Commissioners of Sewers, and Drainage Boards ; River Conservancy Boards ; Joint Committees for Asylums and for various other poor law purposes ; Burial Boards ; and a number of Joint Boards and Committees of different kinds for particular purposes. Some of these will be mentioned incidentally m the following survey, but in a general sketch like the present it is unnecessary to describe them in detail.

i. Tlie Administrative County

The Ancient County is the historical division of England and Wales, and still remains an area for parliamentary and judicial purposes, but its importance as an area for local government ceased when, in 1888, the administrative powers of the Justices of the Peace wore transferred to the new elective bodies. It is true that the justices still issue licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and license private lunatic asylums and inebriate homes, but these are mere fragments of their former duties.

For the purposes of local government the county is divided into the administrative county or counties and county boroughs. These latter are municipal boroughs which, either because they have populations of 50,000, or for other reasons in rare cases, are withdrawn from the authority of the councils of the administrative counties ; they have the same organisation as an ordinary municipal borough, but their councils exercise the powers of a county council within their areas. The administrative counties are in all (including London) 62 in number, and in most cases they are the same in extent, except for slight differences of boundaries, as the ancient counties ; but seven of these — Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Sussex, Hampshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suftblk — are divided into two or three administrative counties, and London constitutes a county by itself.

In each the authority is the county council,^ consisting of members elected triennially by popular vote (women are not eligible), and aldermen elected for six years by the councillors. The number of councillors varies according to local conditions ; the aldermen are one-third of the number of councillors and, apart from the longer tenure of their seats, they have no special position. Each council elects a chairman and vice-chairman for one year, but ^ The London County Council is described later.

they may be, and commonly are, re-elected. The electorate includes every person (not being an alien or disqualified under any Act of Parliament) who is of full age, is "on the loth July in any year and has been for the preceding twelve months, in occupation of premises of the clear yearly value of ten pounds, has resided during that period within seven miles of the county boundary, is rated to the relief of the poor, and is not in arrears of payment. Contested elections for the councillors' seats have been comparatively rare; in the first year (1889) for 3240 seats there were 1749 elections, but the number declined rapidly until, in 1901, only 433 contests took place in 3349 electoral districts. The controversies aroused by the Education Act of 1902 increased the number greatly at the elections of 1904 ; but that is probably only a temporary phenomenon, and in very few places outside London do the county council elections form the subject of organised party action. In most cases the councils are filled by members of much the same social classes as supply the bench of justices, and only to a slight extent by representatives of the lower middle and working classes ; these latter are excluded, in part by the difficulty of giving up the amount of time needed when the county centre can be reached only by a long journey, and still more by the fact that social position still counts for much with the electors. It is on the whole true that, " in spite of a democratic constitution, the chesses who had, until 1888, the privilege of managing county affairs still continue to do so, a de facto monopoly of wealth and position being substituted for a constitutional privilege."

B

But tlie councils generally command public confidence ; they rarely show political partisanship ; they have been able to draw into their ranks much administrative ability ; and in the conduct of their work they have shown considerable energy and enterprise.

That work is extensive and varied. They supervise the sanitary administration of the rural district councils, and themselves have some Public Health powers ; they maintain county bridges and main roads, either directly or through the district councils ; their consent is needed for some of the acts of rural district and parish councils ; they administer the Acts relating to allotments, diseases of animals, weights and measures, and the sale of food and drugs ; they can establish reformatories and industrial schools ; with central approval they may make and work light railways ; they may promote and oppose Bills in Parliament ; they make bye-laws for a number of matters for the county ; they can hold and manage county property, levy rates, and borrow money (with the consent of the Local Government Board). Through their representatives on the Standing Joint Committee they control the county police forces. Finally, the Education Act of 1902 has greatly increased their work and responsibility by entrusting to them not only the power of supplying or aiding " higher education " (where hitherto they had been limited to the provision of technical instruction), but also the duty of securing an adequate supply of elementary education. Further, the Local Government Board may transfer to any or all of the councils any powers, duties, or liabilities of the central departments concerned with local administration — a power hitherto unemployed but which may be useful in relieving the pressure upon the central authorities. In the year -1902-3, for the 61 councils (excluding London) the total expenditure was £9,566,366 (including £1,118,272 defrayed out of loans), the principal items being: main roads, £2,393,261; police, £1,899,222 ; payments to other authorities, chiefly from the Exchequer Contributions, £1,496,132 ; and education, £720,559. This last item will naturally show a very large increase in the next few years, since the councils have to maintain, not only the old board schools, but practically all elementary schools.

The ordinary county council meets only some four times a year, and its business then is to do little more than receive the reports of its committees, to decide any important questions of policy raised therein, and to pass the resolutions needed to give efiect to the committees' recommendations. All the real administrative work is done by these committees, which meet as often as they think desirable ; every councillor is a member of at least one committee, and in this way takes part in the actual conduct of the work, and not merely in the discussions on the council. This activity of the committees is peculiarly English ; in most continental countries, and also in the United States, the tendency has been to give the adnunistrativc work to a separate branch of the local authority, and not to the councillors as such — sometimes these latter have simply deliberative functions. The result is that there are often conflicts between the two branches — and these we escape ; whilst our method gives the councillors a much keener interest in their work.

Of these committees, some are "statutory," i.e. required by law ; such are the committees for finance, asylums, diseases of animals, allotments, small holdings, and now education. This last body is to contain, besides the council members, a number of co-opted persons, including women. The Standing Joint Committee of a county council and Quarter Sessions for the control of the police is also statutory, and occupies a peculiar position, since it is practically independent of the council, but reports to it and receives from it the money which it requires. The other committees of a council are not compulsory, but are appointed for the purposes and to the number which each council thinks desirable ; and a committee may appoint sub-committees. As a county council usually meets only four times a year, and many administrative details cannot wait that length of time before settlement, it is authorised to delegate to the committees any of its powers, so as to enable them to act without waiting for approval; but the power of levying a rate or raising a loan cannot be so delegated.

The chief officers of a county council are the clerk, who is also clerk of the peace, an education secretary or director, one or more county coroners, one or more county surveyors, a county treasurer, a public analyst, inspectors of weights and measures, and generally (though this is at the option of the council) a medical officer. They receive their directions from the committees, and not from the council as a whole; and it is to the committees that they report.

ii. The Urban District

The term ." Urban District " when strictly used applies to any non-rural area in which there is a sanitary authority, and it therefore includes municipal boroughs, which from the point of view of Public Health administration are urban districts. But the term is commonly used only for the areas organised under the Local Government Act of 1894 ; these are districts which existed prior to 1894 as Improvement Districts under Commissioners established by local Acts, or as Local Board of Health Districts under the Public Health Acts, and other areas since formed by the county councils and the Local Government Board,

There were in the year 1902-3 812 such urban districts, with populations ranging from less than 300 to (in extreme cases) over 75,000. Their organisation is quite simple; in each the authority is the council, consisting solely of members elected either one-third each year, or all every third year ; women are eligible, and there are no aldermen. The chairman (who holds office for one year but may be reappointed) can be elected by the council from outside, and during his tenure of office he is a justice of the peace for the county. The electors are all persons (including women), not being aliens or disqualified by parliamentary enactment, who are on the local government register of electors or the parliamentary register; thoy include therefore inarried women anrl lodgers. The same qualification holds in rural districts and parishes. The council must meet once a month at least, and it works by means of committees, all or any of which can include persons who are not members of the council. To those committees which deal with sanitary and highway business all the powers of the council in those matters may be delegated, except as regards the levying of a rate or the raising of loans.

The councils are the sanitary and highway authorities for their areas ; they may take over the maintenance of the main roads within their districts from the county council, in return for the payment of an annual sum; they may make use of the " Adoptive Acts " for the provision of burial-grounds, allotments, baths and washhouses, libraries, open spaces, museums, and gymnasiums ; they may make bye-laws of various kinds; they can establish isolation hospitals ; and may exercise any powers which they can get under Provisional Orders or Private Acts for gasworks, tramways, electric light and power works, &c. Under the Education Act, 1902, the council of any urban district with 20,000 inhabitants^ may be an authority for elementary education, and the council of any district, whatever its size, may supply, or aid the supply of education other than elementary; but in both these matters the powers can be surrendered to the local county council, and this is being done fairly generally by the smaller areas. For a number of purposes a combination of districts with a joint committee is allowed.

It is* evident from this list that the work of the urban district councils may be very extensive and important, and there are some whose activities are greater than those of many town councils. The principal officials in the service of an urban district council are the clerk, treasurer, surveyor, medical officer of health, and sanitary inspectors, and the heads of any " trading " departments which may be established. In 1902-3 the expenditure of the urban districts was £12,267,412, of which £3,916,421 was defrayed out of loans. The chief items were : maintenance and cleaning of highways, streets, and bridges, £2,396,608 ; sewerage and 'sewage disposal, £1,947,922 ; gasworks, waterworks, tramways, electric Ught undertakings, and markets, £3,187,334. As regards this last item it should be pointed out that almost exactly half of it was defrayed out of loans, and that the receipts from the undertakings (not including any allowance for the value of lighting and water supplied to local authorities for their own purposes) were £1,600,260. The only substantial differences between the position of a large urban district with an active council and a municipal borough of the same size are that the former has not the formal dignity and some of the privileges connected with the administration of justice and police which the municipalities enjoy, and that it is much more strictly controlled by the Local Government Board, which audits its accounts.

iii. TJie Rural District

From 1875 the rural portion of each Poor Law Union (a group of parishes combined together for the administration of poor relief) — that is, the part of each union which was not in an urban area — formed the rural sanitary district, with the board of guardians as the authority. But some of these lay in two counties, and the Act of 1894 directed that in such a case each part should become a rural district. Each of these areas (there are 672 of them) has a council, elected for three years, and women are eligible: each rural district councillor is the representative of his electoral division (parish) on the board of guardians for the Poor Law Union of which it forms part. One-third of the members retire every year, unless the county council allows the whole body to retire every third year. The chairman is ex-oficio a justice for the county.

The rural district councils have charge of the sanitary administration of the whole country outside the urban districts, and for this purpose, in addition to the ordinary powers which they possess, the Local Government Board may confer on any council, for the whole or part of its area, any or all of the powers of an urban sanitary authority. This is constantly done, and in the year 1903-4 alone the Board granted powers of this kind to 128 rural districts. As sanitary authorities the councils may carry out drainage schemes, provide hospitals for infectious diseases, and do many other things under the Public Health Acts; they may provide allotments ; they may carry out schemes under the Housing Acts ; and they can make arrangements for an adequate water supply. Some of the sanitary duties may be delegated to the parish councils, or to parochial committees. Next to sanitation the most important part of their work is highway administration ; they are responsible for all tlie roads (some 95,000 miles in length) which are not main roads, and they may see to the upkeep of main roads as the agents of the county councils. Out of a total ordinary expenditure in 1902-3 of £3,917,629 by the rural districts, more than fiveeighths (£2,624,000) was upon highways and bridges, and of the total debt of £4,180,105 more than £3,610,000 had been incurred for sewerage and waterworks. These figures illustrate better than anything else the nature of the work of these authorities; they act (as do all English councils) mainly by committees, which as regards formation and working are similar to those of urban districts ; and on the whole, considering the difficulties which have to be encountered in the more sparsely populated areas, the work is well done. The principal officers are the clerk (who is generally also clerk to the guardians), treasurer, medical officer, a sanitary inspector and surveyor (though these last two offices are often held together).

iv. The Parish

The unit of local government is the Parish, which for this purpose is defined as " a place for which a separate poor-rate is or can be made, or a separate overseer is or can be appointed." The number of such parishes was 14,797 in 1902-3 ; but only " rural " parishes {i.e. those which lie within a rural district) have a special organisation for local government purposes.

In every parish, urban and rural, there exists for ecclesiastical purposes a veslry, which may be

" open " or " common " — in which case all ratepaying inhabitants may attend ; or it may be " select," generally in those parishes which have adopted Hobhouse's Act of 1831, and then it is composed of elected vestrymen. In either case it is concerned solely with ecclesiastical matters, such as the election of churchwardens and the maintenance of the church. In an urban district, unless the power has been transferred by an order of the Local Government Board to the urban district council, the vestry still nominates the overseers of the poor — but in most cases the power has been so transferred. The ecclesiastical parish is, however, not always now identical with the civil parish in urban areas.

For general administration the rural parishes alone are important. In each there is a parish meeting, of all persons who are on the local government and parliamentary registers ; it elects its own chairman. When the parish has a population of 300 or more, it elects a parish council, either at the parish meetmg or by poll ; and for this body women and persons living within three miles of the parish boundaries are eligible. Parishes with populations of between 300 and 100 can require the county council to authorise them to elect councils, and even parishes with less than 100 inhabitants can do so if they can obtain permission. On the other hand, parishes may be combined by order of their county council; in fact county councils and the Local Government Board have power to unite, divide, or alter parishes. In the year 1902-3 there were 12,985 rural parishes; and of these 7250 were entitled to parish councils, and the remainder to parish meetings only, There are some 2000 parishes mth less than ' 100 inhabitants, and about ninetenths of the total number have populations of less than 1000.