Public Affairs Test - County and District Councils.

Local governments are generally formed as a two-tiered system. In Winchester, for example, The top tier is Hampshire county council . With a budget of about £1.8 billion, they are in charge of road maintenance, and the emergency services as well as services such as libraries, education, social care. The bottom tier (the District council) Winchester city council,  have a much smaller budget of £12.5 million and they look after things more closely related to their district. These include traffic control, some elements of waste disposal, control of council housing and other community and leisure activities and facilities.

The exception to this rule of the two-tiered system are Unitary authorities. This is when there is a single authority that is in charge of all the things that are usually separated between the district and county councils. There are 55 UA’s in the UK, and they are usually formed for places which may be too large for the two-tiered system. One example for this would be Southampton.

Councillors for both District and County councils are supposed to represent the people in the areas they preside over. Indeed, county councillors are elected by a group of their peers every four years, this does not mean that the actual people change particularly often as, in general, the majority of the public do not care about council proceedings unless they are affected directly. Although the cabinet can be liable to change as a result of a general election. This is because cabinet members for the county council are chosen from the largest political party of the area, and from them, a cabinet leader is chosen. So if political attitudes were to change drastically, an entire cabinet would have to be re-elected.

Councillors for district councils are elected from their wards, for which they are responsible. This usually means addressing problems that come up in those wards and bringing them to the attention of the District council.  During a ‘safer neighbourhood’ meeting for Winchester, the issues raised were relevant only to Winchester, and generally, each came from a councillor’s own ward. Though the police were also present and talked about general crime over the entire city.

County councillors on the other hand, do not tend to concentrate on specific areas, instead, they look at broader issues affecting their county as a whole. During a County council meeting which I attended, some of the issues addressed included: Deciding on how to change the way in which adult social care is paid; how to implement a broadband scheme for all of Hampshire; and a short discussion about public transport, bus routes etc. Each of these has a fairly broad target area as opposed to even a specific town or city.

To conclude. Both types of council do essentially the same thing, in helping their particular areas, but county councils are able to do much more as they have much larger budgets and are therefore able to do more for their area than a district council can as they have much less influence respective to their counterparts.

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Local News 101

Having been in Hampshire for about five months now (excluding a month at home for Christmas), I think it's really starting to feel more and more like home. I'm not much of a city person, in the sense of feeling choked with fumes, and surrounded the homeless. And Winchester doesn't count as a city in my book, it's basically just a bigger version of my hometown in Devon, only flatter.

It was only in reading reading an article on the BBC news website for Hampshire that I found myself truly integrating. The article is as simple as it is amazing. It is entitled: Pies and sausages taken in Hampshire garden centre raid. Apparently, a group of daring thieves made of with nearly 50 savoury pies, as well as 18 pieces of cod and a box of jumbo sausages! This credit crunch has forced people to become criminal masterminds!

But the reason I'm relating this story to you is that it struck a chord with my Devon roots, this kind of story would be page one news in my local Gazette. Indeed, there was a story back in January about a man in police custody which said (and I'm quoting from memory here, so this almost certainly won't be verbatim): "The offender then went on to vandalise his cell - with a pasty." If journalism really is turning information into money, I think they struck gold with this. But wait! it gets better: "Apparently [they wrote] he was given a pasty for lunch, and took exception to the fact that it was not heated, and smeared it onto the walls." This is about the extent of crime in the South Hams.

I honestly can't put into words how happy this story made me, and I was elated to read about the Hampshire crooks taking it up a notch. I truly am in Home, Sweet Home.


And they say nothing happens in the Country...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-12524295