History of local government in England
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The history of local government in England in a recognisably modern form emerged during the late 19th century. Most importantly, the Local Government Act 1888 created county councils and county boroughs across England and Wales.
Further reforms in the 1890s divided counties into various lower-tier districts, including rural districts, urban districts, municipal boroughs, and, in the County of London, metropolitan boroughs. This system survived largely unchanged for most of the 20th century. The first major reform took place in 1965, when Greater London was created with a new Greater London Council, replacing the old London County Council.
Another large-scale reform took place in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972. This abolished county boroughs and created a uniform two-tier system everywhere. In England, it created metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties, which were sub-divided into non-metropolitan and metropolitan districts, and merged some smaller counties such as Rutland (into Leicestershire), and Herefordshire and Worcestershire (into Hereford and Worcester). A number of new counties were created, including Avon, Humberside and Cleveland. Several of the new counties created were called metropolitan counties and had a different division of powers between county and district councils.
From 1974 to 1986, the whole of England had a two-tier system, with district councils and county councils. This was changed in 1986 by the abolition of metropolitan county councils and the Greater London Council. The 1990s saw local government reform, instituted by the Conservative Major government. Expansion of unitary government in England happened haphazardly, leaving parts of the country unitary, and other parts two-tier.
Unitary local government was inserted as a precondition for the introduction of any elected Regional Assemblies under the Labour government's former plans to introduce such bodies, prior to the rejection by referendum in the North East in November 2004. The government then said that it had no plans to introduce unitary local government in England but since the 2005 General Election the government has floated the idea of voluntary mergers of local councils, avoiding a costly reorganisation but achieving desired reform. For instance, the guiding principles of the government's "New Localism" demand levels of efficiency not present in the current over-duplicated two-tier structure.
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