Government Essay Grade 12

A Unitary government is often described as a centralized government. It is a government in which all powers held by the government belong to a single central agency. The central government creates local units of government for its own convenience. The majority of governments in the world are unitary. Great Britain is one example of a unitary system of government. A single central organ which is the Parliament holds all the power of the British government. Local governments do exist, but solely to relieve Parliament of burdens it could perform only with difficulty and inconvenience. One advantage of a unitary government is less duplication of services and fewer conflicts between national and local governments. Another advantage of a unitary government is uniform policies, laws, political, enforcement and administration throughout the country. Within all of this the final advantage of a unitary system is there will be more stability and greater unity. One disadvantage of having a unitary government is that the local concerns of citizens are less heard by the central government. Next reason for a disadvantage is, if the central government gets too involved in local problems it may not meet the needs of all its citizens. Finally, a unitary system is slow to meeting local issues and problems that the people are trying to fix. On the other hand, a Federal system of government is a government in which the powers of government are divided between a central government and several local governments. An authority superior to both the central and local governments makes this division of powers on a geographic basis and that division cannot be changed by either the local or national level acting alone. Both levels of government act directly on the people through their own sets of laws, officials, and agencies. In the United States for example the National Government has certain powers and the 50 states have others within the nation. This division of powers is set out in the