Reorganisation, Reorganisation, Reorganisation: A Critical Analysis of the Sequence of Local Government Reorganisation Initiatives, 1979–2008

There has been a lack of clarity about the principles and desirable outcomes behind the ad hoc reorganisations of local government since 1979 and the gradual journey towards creating unitary councils in England. Yet those reorganisations and the unitary councils that were created as a result have developed form a shared belief between governments, of different political complexion, that unitary local government is preferable to a two-tier or multi-tiered system. The paper explores and challenges the foundations on which the preference for unitary local government has been built. It questions the motivations, claims and objectives of the processes of local government reorganisation that have seen the creation of bigger units of local government and the continual drift towards unitary local government.