Metropolitan county

The metropolitan counties are a type of county-level subnational entity in current use in England. There are six metropolitan counties and they cover large urban areas, typically with populations of 1.2 to 2.8 million. They were created in 1974 and are each divided into several metropolitan districts.

The county councils were abolished in 1986 with most of their functions being devolved to the individual boroughs, making them de facto unitary authorities. The remaining functions were taken over by joint-boards.

Counties and districts

The six metropolitan counties and their metropolitan districts (also known as boroughs) are:

! scope="row" valign="top" | Merseyside

! scope="row" valign="top" | South Yorkshire

! scope="row" valign="top" | Tyne and Wear

! scope="row" valign="top" | West Midlands

! scope="row" valign="top" | West Yorkshire

Metropolitan county	Metropolitan boroughs
Greater Manchester

The structure of Greater London is similar to the metropolitan counties and it is sometimes considered to be one. It was created earlier, in 1965, by the London Government Act 1963.

History

Creation

The idea for creating administrative areas based upon the large conurbations outside London, was first mooted by the Redcliffe-Maud Report in the late 1960s. The report proposed the creation of three large "metropolitan areas" based upon the conurbations surrounding Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham.

The proposals of the report were radically altered when Edward Heath's Conservative government came to power in 1970. The metropolitan areas were re-named metropolitan counties, and three new areas were added (Tyne and Wear, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire). In their final form, the counties were also far smaller than in the original proposals.

The metropolitan counties were established by the Local Government Act 1972, the county councils were first elected in 1973, and were formally established in April 1974.

Structure

The metropolitan counties were first created with a two-tier structure of local government. Local government functions were divided between the metropolitan district councils as lower tier authorities and metropolitan county councils (MCCs) as the upper tier.

The structure differed from the non-metropolitan counties in the allocation of powers between the county and district councils. The metropolitan districts had more powers than non-metropolitan districts, in that they were responsible for services such as education, and social services. In the non-metropolitan counties these were the responsibility of the county councils.

The metropolitan county councils (MCCs) were intended to be strategic authorities that ran regional services such as main roads, public transport, emergency services, civil protection, waste disposal and strategic town and country planning. The MCCs functioned between 1974 and 1986. The last elections to the councils were held in May 1981.

Abolition of the county councils

Just a decade after they were established the mostly Labour-controlled metropolitan county councils and the Greater London Council had several high profile clashes, about overspending and high rates charging, with the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. In 1983 the government published a White Paper entitled Streamlining the cities which proposed the abolition of the MCCs, together with the abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC). The government enacted the report in the Local Government Act 1985; the MCCs and the GLC were abolished in 1986.

The government claimed that this was an efficiency measure, although it is widely believed that they were abolished for political reasons, because all of the county councils were controlled by the Labour Party. Most of the functions of the MCCs passed either to the metropolitan borough councils, or to joint-boards. Some assets were given to residuary bodies for disposal.

The status today

The metropolitan counties are sometimes referred to as "former metropolitan counties", although this description is not entirely correct; although the county councils were abolished, the metropolitan counties still exist legally, and are also ceremonial counties (or geographic counties), they are also used in government statistics.

Some local services are still run on a metropolitan county-wide basis, administered by joint-boards, these include emergency services, (policing and fire) public transport (by joint Passenger Transport Executives), waste disposal and civil defence. These joint-boards are made up of councillors appointed by the boroughs.

The abolition of the GLC was extremely controversial, but the MCCs less so. In 1997 Tony Blair's new Labour government legislated to restore a successor body to the GLC: the Greater London Authority. Despite some talk of doing so, no bodies have been established to replace the MCCs. The Blair government instead pursued the idea of elected Regional Assemblies, although this idea now looks dead, as there is little public support for them.

One possible alternative floated subsequent to the rejection of regional assemblies is that of the City region, an idea which is currently under exploration by the government and several think-tanks. For instance, an ODPM strategy paper in 2005 proposed that new directly elected mayors could instead hold office across several urban councils, in effect a city region.

Since the 1995, the cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield have assembled together in the Core Cities Group. This organisation accords no distinct legal status on these councils over any other city council in England but appears to be organically moving towards some kind of recognition of their role as regional capitals outside of London.