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Talk:List of local government areas in Scotland (1930–1975)

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Useful article

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Looks like a very useful article, which I found only by accident.
I note reference to 'electoral divisions' and wonder whether these were parishes or sub-divisions of parishes.
Laurel Bush (talk) 11:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC).[reply]

They were generally defined in terms of parishes or subdivisions thereof, with the schemes published in the Edinburgh Gazette.
For example this is how some of the electoral divisions of the County of Lanark were defined in the gazette of March 11, 1930:
  • Carmichael: Parishes of Biggar (Landward), Carmichael, Covington, Libberton, Pettinain, Symington.
  • Crawford: Parish of Crawford.
  • Crawfordjohn: Parishes of Coulter, Crawfordjohn, Lamington and Wandell, Wiston and Boberton.
and this an example from the same edition for the County of Moray:
  • Rothes: The Parish of Rothes exclusive of the portion included within the limits of the Burgh of Rothes; That part of the Parish of Knockando which lies to the East of a line drawn in a generally northerly direction from the point in the Parish Boundary at which Burn Roy flows into the Spey, up the said burn to its source, and thence due north to the Parish boundary.
It is now possible to add a link to specific pages of the Edinburgh Gazette via the London Gazette citation template, which wasn't the case when I added them to the article. Another day's work! Lozleader (talk) 14:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Laurel Bush (talk) 11:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Period covered is 1947 to 1975?

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I recently altered Regions and districts of Scotland and moved it to Local government areas of Scotland 1973 to 1996, hoping that it will become one of a series of articles about Scottish local government area boundaries
List of local government areas in Scotland 1930 - 1975 looks like it would fit into the series as Local government areas of Scotland 1947 to 1975
I gather from the intro that the article actually covers the period 1947 to 1975, not the longer period indicated in the article title
1947 amendments to the 1929 Act would not have been retrospective
Laurel Bush (talk) 12:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK the 1947 Act "An Act to consolidate with amendments the enactments relating to authorities for the purposes of local government in Scotland" simply consolidated (and repealed) the existing legislation and did not alter either the structure of local government or create any new units, whereas the 1929 Act did. 1930 was the big year for changes with the creation of small and large burghs, new districts, combined counties etcetera. The schedules simply listed the existing counties, counties of cities, large and small burghs (they had never been listed in an act before), while section 38(2) stated: The district council scheme made and approved under section twenty-five of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, and in force in a county at the commencement of this Act shall, until it is revoked or altered under this Part of this Act or Part VI of this Act, be the district council scheme for the county.
The effect of the LG(S)A 1947 was similar to the Local Government Act 1933 in England and Wales: to tidy up various bits of legislation and put them all into one statute, but no innovations. Lozleader (talk) 13:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers
The 1947 act consolidated secondary legislation under the 1929 act with unaffected content of the 1929 act to form a new piece of primary legislation?
Therefore, however, there will have been changes during the 1929 to 1947 period, otherwise the consolidation act would have had no function
Laurel Bush (talk) 15:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see (from reading the schedules) the 1947 Act consolidated the 1929 Act with all the local government legislation in force at the time and amaended or repealed the existing legislation. This ranged (chronologically) from the Jurors (Scotland) Act 1825 to The National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947. Don't think it effected secondary legislation. Lozleader (talk) 16:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If large and small burghs had never been listed in an act before, then I wonder how they were identified as such if not by secondary legislation
I have recently created Local government areas of Scotland, but at present it is just a very sketchy outline
Laurel Bush (talk) 12:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question! I've had a look at the LG(S)A 1929, and the definition was buried in section 77(1) (Interpretation):
  • ‘Large Burgh’ means a burgh containing a population of twenty thousand or upwards, and includes the burgh of Arbroath
  • ‘Small Burgh’ means any burgh other than a large burgh
Doesn't seem very proactive! I was having a look through the parliamentary debates and there was an attempt to introduce an amendment that whenever a small burgh reached a population in 20,000 or more it could apply for a provisional order to up its status, but the government rejected this. Lozleader (talk) 11:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine the Secretary of State for Scotland had secondary legislation powers as regards deciding which burghs qualified as large (as having populations in excess of 20,000)
These powers should be mentioned somewhere in the 1929 act
Seems, however, the government wanted early decisions on this to be fixed for all time
And I imagine there were other matters on which the Secretary of State had secondary legislation powers
Laurel Bush (talk) 12:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, the 1929 act does not seem to contain these powers. The closest thing is:

Any reference in this section to the population of a burgh shall be deemed to be a reference to the population within the police boundaries thereof according to the census of nineteen hundred and twenty-one unless it shall be established to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State within thirty days after the passing of this Act that in the case of any burgh it has a larger population as at the passing of this Act; and in any such case such reference shall be taken to be the larger population so established.

I am fortunate enough to have access to Justis and have the entire act downloaded, and there does not seem to be any procedure for creating a new large burgh. I also have the text of the 1947 Act, which has a procedure for extending burgh boundaries and for establishing and dissolving small burghs, but again no mention of how a large burgh might be brought into being, unless this covers it:

144. The Secretary of State, for the purpose of giving effect to any alteration of area under this Part of this Act so far as specific provision on any matter is not contained in this Part of this Act, may make an order with respect to—


(a ) the jurisdiction of any authority over any part of the area affected by the alteration, the functions of any such authority and the officers thereof, the property and liabilities of such authorities and the settlement of differences between such authorities;
(b) any matter which appears to him necessary or proper to be dealt with:
Provided that an order with respect to any matter mentioned in paragraph (a) hereof shall be made only after consultation with any authorities concerned.

There was only, I think, one large burgh created after 1930 (East Kilbride). I shall see if I can find the order/legislation under which it gained the status.Lozleader (talk) 14:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lozleader (talk) 14:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

East Kilbride

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Aha! Apparently East Kilbride had to use a private act of parliament to become a large burgh "The Private Bill procedure was the only procedure open to the promoters of the Bill. Under the 1929 legislation, in order to graduate to the status of a large burgh from being a small burgh, they had no other means of proceeding than by a Private Bill of this kind."[1] Seems to have been a bit of an oversight by the drafters of the original legislation! Lozleader (talk) 15:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The parliamentary debate is very informative, apparently E Kilbride Town Council sought to be upgraded from small to large burgh status by provisional order, and this was (not surprisingly) objected to by Lanark County Council, their case being:

... there were no statutory provisions in either the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947, or in any other enactment for changing the status of a small burgh to that of a large burgh, and the proposals of the draft Provisional Order necessitated amendments of the First Schedule to the 1947 Act, in which both the large and small burghs were particularly specified; so far as the county council was aware, there was no precedent since the 1947 Act, or since the passing of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, for an Order to alter the status of a burgh in the manner proposed in the draft Provisional Order.

Grangemouth had apparently tried to become a large burgh by order in 1961, but was told to take the parliamentary route, which it doesn't appear to have pursued. So there we are! Lozleader (talk) 15:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So
Just how each small or large burgh first came to be sure that it would be treated as such, got itself effectively listed and 'certified', is still a mystery
Laurel Bush (talk) 13:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody (who?) must have made a list from the 1921 census, but how this gained the stamp of officialdom is indeed obscure! Probably buried in a Scottish Office circular or something... Speculation like this is of course WP:OR! It kind of explains why they felt the need to list them in '47! Lozleader (talk) 13:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like maybe something was missed during scrutiny of the 1929 act and subsequently glossed over by both local authorities and the Secretary of State (who would otherwise have needed new primary legislation)
I am thinking also it might be a good idea to move List of local government areas in Scotland 1930 - 1975 to Local government areas of Scotland 1929 to 1975 and deal with other issues later
Laurel Bush (talk) 16:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of community council areas in Scotland#Highland looks, by the way, like an especially interesting result of what happens when inadequacies in primary legislation are glossed over by those who are supposed to implement it
Laurel Bush (talk)

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