Why have we got so many tiers of government?

Question

I live in Newham and in the last 3 years I have elected the following:
Local Councillor
Borough Mayor
GLA Member
London Mayor
MEP
MP

Answer 1

There are many things worng with the European Union, but one thing that is right is the idea of "subsidiarity", that functions within democratic government should be exercised by a tier of government representing as few people as is consistent with effective functioning.

There are some things, like environmental issues and the government of large-scale business, that are too big even for Westminster. Others, like street cleaning and many other functions, are best governed locally by representatives who share in what is happening at the grass roots.

The trouble in the United Kingdom is that the Westminster establishment including MPs and not least our inefficient civil servants, like to aggregate power. Local Government is largely funded, and therefore controlled by funds from Westminster, not that you would believe it from the inequitable and burdensome Concil Tax. In addition Councillors are crippled in exercising fheir role by masses of Government regulations. Local Government just about everywhere else in the developed world, particularly the United States and Western Europe, has much greater power and autonomy.

Excessive Government intereference has made local government in the UK unpopular because candidates are unable to offer genuine choices at local elections and to implement them if elected. As a result turnouts have plummeted. Faced with this unpopularity, politicians, particularly New Labour, have multiplied local government figures to appear to be imporving local democracy. In your case the Borough Mayor, GLA members and London mayor are all innovations from the last ten years. But Westminster continually grudges giving new local political offices real powers, so the problem goes round in circles.

Matters are even worse because local govenment arrangements in the UK are wildly inconsistent. London Scotland and Wales have three different sorts of regional government (The Mayor and GLA in London); but most of England does not. Within England, unitary councils like Medway have been arbirarily carved out of counties like Kent, the rest of which retain the old County Council and District Councils. There is a large measure of partisan political advantage in Government decisions about local government arrangements.

There is a desperate need for more consistent local government in England councils nearer the grass roots holding real power. But don't hold your breath waiting for this whilst either Labour ot the Tories are in office at Westminster, or until we have more competent Westminster politicians able to keep the Westminster civil service under proper democratic control.

Answer 2

Anthony Blair Labour Party

Answer 3

Those tiers of government are specially designed so that the buck can be passed in some form of order, until it reaches us the populus.

Answer 4

Well if the English decide they need an England only parliament, they'll have another layer of bureaucracy too. Britain is bureaucracy-mad, this is why we have more managers in the NHS than beds.

Answer 5

All those tiers just add to the bureaucracy in my opinion.

Answer 6

Because government in this country brings tears to your eyes

Answer 7

www.spp.gov worth checking out

Answer 8

what is a tiers

Answer 9

kill goverment cos they killing us