Central—Local Financial Relationships

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the role of local government and its relationship with Central Government has become, in Scotland as in England, a major item of political controversy. In the past, there was a large degree of consensus on the role of local government in providing services and regulating urban development. In the post-war years, central government encouraged local councils to increase service and spending levels as part of a series of national programmes in housing, education, social work and other fields. We have noted that the Wheatley philosophy of an active local government engaged in the physical and social planning of the communities for which it was responsible was accepted by both major parties. Both, too, had a place for local government in their political thought. The Labour tradition of ‘municipal socialism’ emphasised the role of local government in improving living conditions for working people, while traditional Conservatives saw local governemnt as a protection against the over-mighty state.