Local Gummint

Local government in England is a mess. I have recollections of films from the 1940s where there was an insignificant looking little man called the Town Clerk who used to run the show. These days there is layer upon layer of various types of councils and all seem to have a CEO (think big bucks). Unravelling the various levels is a minefield.

There are 

• Town or Parish Councils
• District/Borough Councils
• County Councils
• Unitary authorities
• Metropolitan Councils

Each has their own set of uncivil serpents and elected councillors. The number I have found is about 2 million shirking in local government, of whom half a million are teachers, along with about 17,000 elected councillors. Of course each level of this mess has its own set of responsibilities and some overlap a bit leading to furious turf wars. In some areas of planning three levels of Council are involved leading to a very drawn out process of approval where each level tries to make a name for itself. It’s not enough that the various levels of officials are involved but so are the councillors. Seeing as they are elected, councillors are absolutely full of themselves and very much of the “Do you know who I am” mentality. If you don’t actually know who they are, you will be reminded that they have been elected.

All of these councils have committees and cabinets and so on, they like to mirror what they think happens in Whitehall/Westminster.

At County Council level most are elected with a couple of thousand votes, lower down the pecking order they will probably be elected with less than a thousand votes. Such is our democracy.

The lowest level of administration is the Parish Council. It may style itself a town, village, community, neighbourhood or city council but they are all the same really. Some smaller parishes have Parish Meetings instead of a council or they can apply to be merged with neighbouring councils. As far as I could see, the only statutory duty they have is to provide allotments. They are also allowed to meddle in various local things such as litter bins, public toilets, crematoria, parks and playgrounds; you get the idea. Provided the higher authority agrees they may also look after bus shelters, road lighting, car parks and markets. They also have the right to be consulted on all planning applications in their area; this leads to massive bun fights where road planning and housing development is concerned.

It also seems that the Town Clerk is still a thing at Parish level, the CEO craze has not reached our lowest level of governance. All in all the Parish Councils vary so much it is difficult to define what they do because each one can be different depending on the powers they choose or are allowed to exercise. To add insult to injury, they have uncontested elections where nobody votes if the number of candidates is less than or equal to the number of vacant positions. All very Stalinist.

The next level up is the District or Borough Council. They are responsible for local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection and recycling, cemeteries and crematoria, leisure services, parks and tourism. Some of these areas can be passed down to the Town Council level. I also remember they are responsible for elections so, electoral registration, the elections themselves and the counting of the votes including postal votes.

At the top of the tree sits the County Council and that looks after education, Strategic planning, transport planning, passenger transport, highways, the fire service, social services, libraries and waste disposal. The social services part is split into adult and child sections. As an aside the children’s social service is like a honeypot for paedos. They have the devil of a job to keep the perverts out.

There are also Unitary Authorities where all local government functions are performed by one authority. At present there are 62 Unitary Authorities. Some are large towns others are entire counties; one such is our old friends from Wiltshire.

This leaves the Metropolitan councils, these are basically Unitary Authorities, the name is a relic from the past.

There are about 17,000 councillors in England at Unitary, County and District level, they are not paid but do get expenses. Of District Councils and higher there are 317 in England. There are a further 10,000 local councils in the UK including town, parish, community, neighbourhood and village councils. You may by now be thinking it is a bit of a dog’s breakfast and you would be right. Where planning decisions are concerned you can have up to 3 levels of council involved. Each trying to make a name for itself from NIMBY to we desperately need this. I have also seen a figure of 70,000 councillors, this may be the case when you take into account the lowest form of council.

Wales, Scotland and Norn Iron have managed to end up with only Unitary Authorities. Meanwhile back in England we have

• 21 County Councils
• 164 District Councils
• 32 London Boroughs, these are Unitary
• 36 Metropolitan Boroughs these are also Unitary
• 62 Unitary authorities
• 2 odds and ends, the City of London and the Isles of Scilly.

Sometimes adjacent councils merge and we end up with, probably, another Metropolitan Borough.

The County and District councils do overlap, fiercely guard their areas of responsibility and each has its own collection of CEOs, CFOs, COOs and uncle Tom Cobbley. None of these positions can be described as low paying. My own District of Tandridge in Surrey with just over 90,000 inhabitants has a CEO on a six figure salary and Surrey County Council has its own CEO on an even bigger salary. There are 12 Districts in Surrey each with its own CEO and so on.

Around 2 million people work as civil servants in local government of which about half a million are teachers. The median pay of civil servants is £33,980 but this is for central government, the figure for purely local government is very hard to find, perhaps intentionally. The major attraction for these jobs is the pension which is massively better than anything available in the private sector; in fact many in the LG sector stay there for the chance to retire on what seems to be megabucks. Much effort is expended in trying to get early retirement for a multitude of reasons.

While the 3 other nations in the United Kingdom manage to function with Unitary Authorities, England seems plagued with a shambles of local government organisation. I defy anyone to unravel its complexities. I remember Ted Heath had a reorganisation in the early 1970s and the headlines then were that he just imposed another layer of leeches on top of the existing leeches. Maybe that has since been watered down but I have my doubts.

Next time you see your Council Tax bill remember where it goes and a massive amount is on Social Services of just about every description. This area is divided into adult and children. Guess what type of person is most attracted to applying for jobs in children’s social services. You got it in one, as mentioned before it is the pedalo people and it is a devil of a job trying to keep them out. There are some very sick people out there.

Following the demise of the Greater London Council in 1986 after the shenanigans of Red Ken, the newt fancier, went too far for Maggie a new Greater London Authority was created in 2000. We are all well aware that Mayor Sad Dick treats it as his own private fiefdom and has various money spinning schemes where he parts the gullible from their hard earned and doles it out among his mates who probably share his origins. With the demographics of London as they are and tribal voting patterns, Sad Dick has a job for life. Talk about rotten boroughs.

I kind of hope you are all as confused as I am, surely nobody really understands how such a silly bunch of organisations can function effectively. On the other hand it is an efficient job creation machine and maybe that is its real function. I have not mentioned the corruption that must go hand in hand with these devils. I have no proof or even details but it must go on, remember the Poulson case in the North East back in the sixties and even Harold Wilson got caught up in that kind of thing, slag heaps anyone and I am not referring to our Deputy Prime Minister in case you are wondering.
 

© well_chuffed 2024