Local Government Administration - in a Time of Change

Written for students of local government administration who are following BTEC higher and professional courses of study. It discusses local government in the context of broader political and economic changes during the last 20 years. The decline of consensus politics has had a major impact on local government and during the 1980s issues related to local government have occupied a prominent place on the political agenda. Local government has undergone a revolution and the book seeks to identify the principal characteristics of that revolution and evaluate its practical consequences. It does so by examining local government structure, relations between councillors and officers, local authority meetings, local authority management, compulsory competitive tendering, local authorities and the public.