Speaking on other branches of his work, Mr. .Greenwood acknowledged
that the new Local Government Act was working smoothly. Nearly all the new authorities had been able to submit their schemes by the statutory date. As for the effect upon the rates, he thought that if local authorities spent no more than in the standard year the poundage would be lower. If there was disappointment in this respect it would be due to new expenditure and the exhaustion of balances by moribund Boards of Guardians. Mr. Greenwood also acknowledged that where he had substituted locally appointed Guardians for the Guardians appointed from the Civil Service by the late Government (as, for example, in West Ham), there had been a slight increase in costs. Altogether, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, as the champion of the Local Government Act, came by inference extremely well out of Mr. Greenwood's survey.
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