Decentralisation, Democratisation and Delivery: English Sub-municipal Devolution

Abstract

Local Government in England has long experiment with decentralisation and devolution within its own territorial boundaries. Those experiments have partly been driven by political values that favour passing functions and responsibilities from the town hall to local communities and partly by the need to compensate for the large scale of English local government. The creation of sub-municipal units takes a range of forms and purposes most of which are controlled, shaped and organised by the council which formed them and which can abolition them if it chooses. Parish and own councils stand unique among the sub-municipal units in English local government as they are statutory bodies with their own set of roles, powers and functions which are not the property of another municipality. The chapter explores the diverse nature of the types of sub-municipal units that exist in English local government and examines the contribution they make to service delivery, decision-making and local democracy.