ABSTRACT
Local authorities have three main functions: the provision of services for citizens, the management of their resources of money, land and people and planning to reduce uncertainty about the future. The traditional pattern of administration and decisionmaking in the various activities which make up these three functions was a series of departments each reporting to a separate committee of councillors and relating their work only occasionally to that of the authority’s other departments. Equally, the only point at which the committees’ decisions were brought together and related one to another was when all the minutes of the committees were brought to the full council meeting for final approval. Only at that stage could committee decisions be examined to see whether they conflicted with the decisions of another committee; whether the overall use of resources by committees met the priorities which councillors wished should be followed and whether their decisions formed part of a coherent plan for the authority’s future activity. This traditional pattern of decisionmaking and administration took similar forms throughout the country (Greenwood and Stewart (eds), 1974). Rather like the mass-produced statues of Queen Victoria which can be found somewhere in most English city centres, until the 1960s most local authorities throughout the country had similar political and administrative procedures and structures, which in turn suffered from the same weaknesses.
