Local Government under Siege

Abstract

The establishment of the Commission for Local Democracy (CLD) in November 1993 reflected widespread concern not only about elected local government but about all forms of democratic activity at sub-national level. In a nutshell there was a fear that the ‘local’ element in our democratic mix had withered and was in danger of extinction. British politics had ‘become too exclusively national’¹ with too much power concentrated in London. The centralist tendencies of post-war governments had, the CLD’s final report argued, become excessive.² In order to examine these claims this book incorporates specially commissioned versions of ten of the sixteen CLD research papers. Additionally, the editors provide a critical analysis of both the diagnosis and prescriptions offered by the Commission.