Local Government Dictionary

Benches
In the House of Commons, as the House of Lords, the members sit on benches. The members of the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet sit on the benches at the front. Therefore they are sometimes called Front Benchers. Those who sit on the benches behind are also known as Back Benchers.

Cross Bench Peers are independent members of the House of Lords. They do not belong to a political party. They are called Cross Bench Peers because they sit on the benches that cross the chamber of the House of Lords. They are separate from the Government and the Opposition benches.

Best Value
The Best Value system became law in England as part of the Local Government Act 1999.

The four key features are:

· a continuous process of improving the quality and effectiveness of services, using comparisons and target-setting (Compare)
· regularly reviewing all services to find out what the public value most and whether the new delivery systems are more cost-effective (Consultation)
· an even-handed approach that doesn't favour either the council or external organisations as service providers (Competition)
· rigorous monitoring and audit systems (Challenge)

Cabinet
The Cabinet is a group of about twenty of the most important Ministers chosen by the Prime Minister. The Cabinet meets every week to discuss how the Government will manage the country. Most of the Ministers in the Cabinet are in charge of a Government Department such as the Home Office or the Treasury.

The Shadow Cabinet is made up from MPs and peers from the second largest, or official Opposition party in Parliament. Each one is responsible for commenting on the policies and performance of a Government Department. The Ministers in charge of the Departments are part of the Cabinet. This is where the name Shadow Cabinet comes from. The members of the Shadow Cabinet 'shadow' the real Cabinet.
The Leader of the Opposition chooses the Shadow Cabinet.

Candidate
A candidate is a person who stands for election. To be a candidate in a General Election the person must be a British citizen and over 21 years of age. The candidate must also be supported by ten electors who live in the constituency.

Constitution
Constitution is a word which describes all of the laws and rights that the people in a country have.

In some countries all of this is written down in one document. In this country, however, it is not written down in one place. The Constitution includes all of the laws made by Parliament and lots of customs and traditions that have developed over many centuries.

Constituencies
The United Kingdom is divided up into areas called constituencies. One MP is elected to represent each of these areas. The size and number of constituencies are reviewed about every 8 to 12 years by the Boundary Commission. Sometimes constituencies are called 'seats'. There are 659 constituencies at the moment.

County Council
The upper tier of two-tier authorities, counties are generally responsible for core services. The lower tier, district councils, are usually responsible for more local services.

Council Tax
Council Tax helps pay for local services. All homes are taxable, including flats and the amount each resident pays varies according to the value of the property they live in. All homes are sorted into one of eight valuation bands (at 1991 prices). The bands run from A (under £40,000) to H (over £320,000). People in Band H properties pay three times as much council tax as band A residents.

Democracy
Democracy is government by the people. Britain is a democratic country because the people elect their Members of Parliament.

District Council
Can also be known as borough or city councils. The lower tier in a two-tier system, districts are responsible for delivery of local services, while counties take on core services.

European Parliament
The European Parliament is a Parliament for the European Union. Britain is a member of the European Union. Each of the 15 countries that belong to the European Union elects representatives to this Parliament.

Executive
Made up of more senior councillors who have responsibility for council service portfolios. Councillors not on the executive have the role of scrutinising the work of the executive.

Full Council
Meeting attended by every councillor in a local authority. Council decisions are voted on, and policy and budgeting matters considered.

Government
Government is the management of the country. It is made up of the different Departments run by Ministers and the Prime Minister is in charge of it.
The Party that wins the most seats in a General Election forms the Government. The Prime Minister, who is the leader of that party, selects the members of the Government.

The Government does not make laws. Parliament makes laws and checks that the Government is doing its work properly. The Government proposes new laws and presents them to Parliament.

Green Paper
Consultation document on central government policy. The government may publish a green paper outlining policy on a matter and asking for feedback, before presenting it to parliament as a bill. A green paper is not a requirement of any bill.

House of Commons
Together with the House of Lords and the Crown, the House of Commons forms Parliament. The House of Commons are made up with approximately 659 MP's, each MP represents one of the 659 areas or constituencies into which the UK is divided.

The House of Commons does various types of work, including making laws, controlling finance, examine the work of Government, controlling indirect law-making (delegated legislation), examining European proposals and protecting the individual i.e. the grievances of the public against central Government.

House of Lords
Together with the House of Commons and the Crown, the House of Lords form Parliament. The House of Lords is a key contributor to the process of initiating, revising and amending legislation and laws. It also acts as a check on the activities of Government, provides a wide-range of independent expertise on specialist subjects and is home to the highest Court of Appeal in the UK (except for criminal cases in Scotland).

Unlike MP's, Lords are unpaid. Currently there are four types of members of the House of Lords, they are Bishops, Elected Hereditary Peers, Law Lords and Life Peers. The public does not elect members of the House of Lords.

Bishops are leaders of the Church of England. Some of them have a seat in the House of Lords, this is because the Church of England is the 'established' church of the state. The Anglican Archbishop's of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester and 21 other senior Diocesan Bishops can sit in the House of Lords. They are sometimes called the Lords Spiritual and they have a special bench in the House of Lords called the Bishops' Bench. It is the only bench with arms.

Elected Hereditary Peers inherit their titles from one of their parents. The Peerage consists of five titles, Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron. The House of Lords Act 1999 ended the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords - 92 of the existing hereditary peers to remain as members. The 92 members are made up of 15 office holders i.e. Deputy Speakers or Chairmen who were elected by the entire House, 75 Party and Crossbench members elected by their own party group and represent approximately 10% of the total of hereditary peers and 2 hereditary peers who hold Royal appointments.

Law Lords, which up to 12 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary are appointed to hear appeals from lower courts.

Life Peers are people who have been given the title of Lord. The Prime Minister advises the Queen about who should become Life Peers. It is a great honour and they take care to choose important people. Because they are Lords they become members of the House of Lords and can attend debates. The title is theirs for life.

Leader
Usually the head of the largest party in the council, the leader is the most high profile elected member in the authority. He or she is either chosen by the other councillors, or by the public if he or she is a directly elected mayor.

Local agenda 21 (LA21)
Every local authority has to have a local agenda 21 strategy. The strategy is a local action plan, and has to show how the council will work with its communities towards environmentally friendly sustainable development.

Manifesto
A Manifesto is a document produced by a political party. It gives details of all their policies and ideas. Each political party usually publishes a Manifesto before a General Election.

Member of Parliament (MP)
An MP is a member of the House of Commons. MPs divide their time between working in their constituency and in the House of Commons in London. Your MP gained the right to represent your constituency by receiving more votes than any other candidate at the last general or by-election. Once elected it is a MPs job to represent the people of their constituency whether or not they voted for him or her.

Metropolitan
Usually called metropolitan borough or city council, these are single tier authorities with responsibility for the delivery of all services in their area.

National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR)
The Government sets the national rate so that businesses in premises of similar value pay the same amount across the country. Non-domestic or business rates are collected from businesses by Local Authorities and is paid into a 'National Pool'. The pool is then redistributed to each Local Authorities on the basis of population. Special arrangements apply in the City of London.

NNDR money combines with the revenue support grant (RSG) and council tax to make up local government funding.

Overview & Scrutiny
This is the role played by councillors who aren't members of the executive. The idea is that decision-making can be examined objectively by elected members not involved in the process. Overview and scrutiny also applies to council services, and services provided by external organisations such as health trusts.

Parish Council
A parish council forms the lowest tier of civil government. Its powers are defined and granted by acts of Parliament and no expenditure can be made by a council except in accordance with those powers. A parish council can be thought of as the "eyes, ears and voice" of its local community, relaying their opinions and views to higher levels of government. Parish councils have limited tax raising powers and can make bye-laws to improve the governance of their areas.

Parliament
The British Parliament is made up of three parts - the Monarch, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Parliament is where new laws are debated and agreed. In fact the name Parliament comes from the French word 'parler' which means to talk.

Performance Indicator
A way of measuring how a service is performing against its objectives. Performance indicators may be collected for local or national purposes.

Performance Plans
Councils publish a performance plan each year, to inform local citizens about the council. It includes: information on what services it will deliver, how it will deliver them, how services measure up to national and local performance indicators and how the council plans to improve its performance.

Political Parties
Political Parties are formed by groups of people who share the same policies and ideas. There are several political parties represented in the House of Commons. This list shows how many MPs there were elected in each party in the General Election in 2001.

Labour 412
Conservative 166
Liberal Democrat 52
Scottish National Party (SNP) 5
Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalist) 4
Ulster Unionist Party 6
SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) 3
Ulster Democratic Unionist Party 5
Sinn Fein 4
Independent (Dr. Richard Taylor) 1
The Speaker 1

Quango
Stands for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. Although quangos are part of national government they operate at a distance. The Audit Commission is a quango.

Referendum
A Referendum is when a political decision is made by asking each elector in the country to vote on it.

It was used recently to ask voters in Scotland whether they wanted to have their own Parliament, and voters in Wales whether they wanted to have their own Assembly.

Regional Assembly/Chamber
There are eight regional assemblies/chambers in England. They scrutinise the work of the eight regional development agencies. Regional assemblies are made up of councillors and people from the private and voluntary sectors.

Revenue Support Grant (RSG)
Stands for Revenue Support Grant. An amount of money given by central government to local authorities each year. It is a Central Government grant to make up the shortfall between a Council's Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) Opens in a new window and the Council's share of Non-Domestic Business Rates plus the amount of Council Tax it would collect if it was set at a national standard rate. This is intended to ensure that Council Tax bills of properties in the same band could be the same across the country if every Council budgeted to spend at its SSA.

Scrutiny
This is the role played by councillors who aren't members of the executive. The idea is that decision-making can be examined objectively by elected members not involved in the process. Scrutiny also applies to council services, and services provided by external organisations such as health trusts.

Social Exclusion
Term used about people or the areas they live in that experience high crime, poor housing, high unemployment, low incomes, etc. Rather than focus on these areas individually, the government is trying to approach social exclusion as a whole. The Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) does much of this work.

Standard Spending Assessment (SSA)
Stands for Standard Spending Assessment. This is the government's view of what each local authority needs to spend to deliver a standard level of services. The SSA is calculated by reference to local statistics including population, deprivation, length of roads and many other factors. It's not based on actual spending, and so negative differences have to be made up at a local tax level, i.e. by increasing council tax.

Sustainable Development
Improving quality of life without compromising the future. A process of planning in local authorities which integrates social, economic, and environmental perspectives, and includes significant discussion with the communities involved.

Two-Tier Local Government
When county and district councils work together to deliver services. County councils tend to deliver all-encompassing services such as education, while districts tend to deliver the smaller, localised services such as tourism.

Unitary
English unitaries can be called council, district, city or borough. Rutland is a unitary authority but is called a county. Welsh unitaries can be called council, borough, county, or city & county. All unitaries are single tier authorities, which means they have responsibility for delivering all services in their area.

White Paper
Statement of central government policy. The government may publish a white paper indicating policy on a matter before presenting it to parliament as a bill. A white paper is not a requirement of any bill.
For example the government published a local government white paper, 'Strong local leadership - quality public services' in December 2001. It introduced several new mechanisms, such as comprehensive performance assessment (CPA), and indicated the way central government thinking on local government is heading.