This post looks at the context of the 1992 review process.
Background [P1]
In 1992 the then Conservative government decided to ‘reform' local government. It was originally planned to complete the local government review process by 1996 but following the “1993 County Council elections in 1993, (where the Conservative party lost seats) the new Secretary of State for the Environment, John Gummer, seemed to want the whole business over and done with as quickly as possible. Cornwall which had been at the end of the queue, now found itself subject to a hurried review. This caused the predictable consternation and disarray among existing local government in Cornwall, where many had expected the review to collapse of its own volition well before the march through the Tory shires had been completed. As the local government review process descend on Cornwall it gradually dawned on people that it could result in the demise of Cornwall County Council and the six Cornish districts.
[P2 ]
While the predictable reaction of many was panic there was another, perhaps more positive side to this review. To some extent it differed from its predecessors. The most interesting novelty was that the Policy Guidance set out by the Government … stressed there was no “national blueprint for reform” and suggested that different areas might end p with different local government structures... This flexibility, together with the emphasis on "identities and interests of local communities”, as well as the less surprising “cost-effectiveness", was an encouraging omen. Perhaps here was a real opportunity for a wide –ranging and knowledgeable debate on the best government for Cornwall, conducted as openly and widely as possible.
However, during 1994 the ‘debate' over local government in Cornwall, as in the English counties, quickly degenerated into an unedifying manoeuvring by various vested interests, both in the public and private sectors. Any hopes that the review process would stimulate a real debate on the best form of government for Cornwall were dashed. This was partly due to the special pleading of those institutions that scuttled to defend their own interests but also partly due to the nature of the review itself. This was in fact far narrower in practice than the original hype had suggested."
Source: Cornish Social and Economic Research Group, (1994), ‘Empowering Cornwall – the best government for the region and its communities’. [P1 refers to the page in the original report]
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