Local Government Reform
A proposal relating to the structure of local government which is to be submitted to the Labour Party conference at Whitsuntide is likely to meet with as much support outside the party as within it. It favours a plan, recommended in a report adopted by the executive committee, for a " two-tier " system of administration, with elected regional authorities each covering a considerable district, and others for smaller areas. Wherever we turn in the sphere of local reconstruction we come again and again on the necessity of unified administration over an area,larger than that controlled by the existing authorities. In some' cases co-ordination may meet the needs ; in others decidedly not. Housing schemes often require development in regions outside the area of the authority concerned. Local planning cannot be rigidly confined to small areas. The Minister of Health has indicated that the National Health programme is to be administered locally, and nothing less than an authority with regional powers could meet the need. The report suggests that the new regions must not be so large that the sense of a common interest in their government would be lost, but must be large enough to enable the authority to provide large-scale services and cope with reconstruction. The smaller area authorities, too, it is recommended. should be given a status and duties which would attract public- spirited people into their service. Informed opinion in all parties is moving in the direction of a reform of local government along the lines proposed, and it is well that a definite scheme should be formulated for consideration—and for action at no distant date.
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