Local Authorities play an important role in the society we live in. They have been set up by central government to make it easier to provide a vast variety services to the people. Local authorities or councils as they are also known, are made up of elected councillors, which are voted in by the people of the local area (thepeoplesbudget,2014).
Local authorities have been split into a range of unitary and two tier councils. Unitary governments tend to be in the larger town and cities in England. They take on the responsibility of providing all the services to the people in their area. Two tier structures tend to be in slightly smaller areas like counties and districts, where they are responsible for wider spread services. There is also parish and town councils that operate in rural and smaller towns but they tend to provide smaller services like sports hall and liaise with counties and districts to provide higher services (thepeoplesbudget,2014). …show more content…
They are bound by law to carry out certain types of services. Not all the functions are carried out by the local authority; some are controlled by central government. Central government normally take control over the local authorities with taxes (thepeoplesbudget,2014).
Local governments are given individual portions of money to help provide services to their area by central government. Local authorities tend to spend around a quarter of the public spending in the UK. Central government decide on how much a specific authority get by calculating the value and number of houses in that area then decide on how much services would cost.