ABSTRACT
As students of British politics are fond of reminding their counterparts in mainland Europe, local government in the United Kingdom is not constitutionally secure. Subordinate to Parliament and formally subject to the whims of central government the central–local government relationship is heavily weighted in favour of the centre. Consequently, national governments have not felt the need to invest much time and effort in understanding the aspirations of local government, preferring instead to press ahead with major programmes of reform 'driven by a combination of pragmat ism and political ideology rarely informed by a shared statement of purpose or agreed set of principles about local government' (Sullivan 2003). So, while central–local relations in the United Kingdom have changed over time, they have done so largely as a result of central government reform and local government's reaction to it. Following the publication of the Layfield Report in 1976, little official attention was paid to the central–local relationship for almost thirty years until the Lyons review of local government, in 2004–2006 (Lyons 2007).
