ABSTRACT
Any form of planning activity by a local authority must take place within a procedural setting which is laid down in the standing orders of Council, and in the more specific instructions to individual committees. Although each local authority has a measure of autonomy in developing these procedures within the legal constitution of the local government system, no local rules of procedure can in themselves do more than provide a basic framework within which groups and individuals can act. Inevitably, certain patterns of behaviour and expectation evolve which tend to become an integral part of the local government system even though they have no official procedural basis. Such conventions may change gradually over time, but tend nevertheless to acquire some degree of permanence in so far as they may not always merely reflect the idiosyncrasies of particular individuals or groups, but may also to some extent represent responses to the intrinsic requirements for effective communication and control. One important set of conventions concerns the role of party politics in the decision-making process; this is nowhere recognized in the official rules of procedure, but in cities such as Coventry it is central to any understanding of the way in which the local authority actually works. The influence of convention is not, however, confined to political activity in this narrower sense of the conflict between organized parties; rather, it extends in some measure to all relationships between groups and individuals within the local government system.
