Talk:Unitary authorities of England

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Earlier forms of local government as unitary authorities

I think it is better to allude to this rather than state it explicitly. Directly comparing a liberty or county corporate with a modern unitary authority is somewhat dubious (thinking in particular about powers and functions) and doesn't appear in the literature. MRSC (talk) 15:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Liberty, probably not, county corporate and county borough probably yes. County corporate and county borough both make the comparison. If not, why mention the earleir history at all? --Mhockey (talk) 17:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No problem with making the comparison, but the phrase "were early forms of unitary authorities" is overstating it. MRSC (talk) 19:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're probably right. The phrase does not seem to have been used in its current sense before 1969. I'll have a go at rewriting the section. --Mhockey (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've now had a go. I notice that the metropolitan boroughs are not included in the current list of unitary authorities. Should they be? If not, perhaps we should say what distinguishes them from those in the list. The implication seems to be that it is simply the existence of joint boards. --Mhockey (talk) 12:07, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unitary Authorities are single-tier authorities (ignoring fire, police, ambulance and other functions which are uniformly/routinely excepted) but not all single-tier authorities are UAs. Unitary Authorities are only those set up in accordance with 1994 regulations made under the Local Government Act 1992 so any authority constituted under other legislation (e.g. Isle of Wight, constituted under LGA 1972) is not a Unitary Authority even if it is a single-tier authority.--MBRZ48 (talk) 23:20, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Functions

UAs are not responsible for fire services. --MBRZ48 (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are, but via joint arrangements. MRSC (talk) 16:05, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Population - statistics

Do we have a figure for the population of unitary areas together? It seems likely that more people live in unitary areas (including metropolitan districts) than in two-tier areas, but are there figures to hand?

Howard Alexander (talk) 12:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs updating

Changes on 1 April 2019 and again in 2020:

2019 structural changes to local government in England

Maps too. Sumorsǣte (talk) 08:35, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unitary Authority vs Unitary Authority Area

This article uses "unitary authority" to mean both the unitary authority itself (i.e. the council), and the area that it administers. The latter is correctly known as a "unitary authority area". Any objections to me remodelling the article to take this into account? Although "unitary authority" is often used as a shorthand to mean the area, the article is a bit incoherent at the moment, and doesn't make it clear at all. Theknightwho (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is there such a thing as a unitary authority area in law, or are there in law only districts and counties? Ryvyly (talk) 23:49, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - here are quite a few examples of the term existing in law. Theknightwho (talk) 00:35, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Berkshire

Okay, so the legal difference between the county of Berkshire and the other non-metropolitan counties is that unitary authorities are almost always "counties of a single district", except that Berkshire still legally exists on paper so that its territory retains its "royal" designation in its name, while it's districts for all intents and purposes function each as a "county of a single district." I think showing Berkshire as distinct in the infobox requires a sentence or two of exposition somewhere in the article. But, I'll for the time leave that to someone more familiar with the legal terms in the UK to craft a clear explanation, because I'm not sure I have the words for it.--Criticalthinker (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Usage and "areas" again

In case there is anybody watching this page who is not part of WikiProject UK geography, you might have views to contribute to the various discussions happening over there about UA terminology. This includes renewed questions about the "unitary authority area" terminology that @Theknightwho: and @Ryvyly: discussed above:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Places and their unitary authorities

As part of those, I've just made some edits to this article to cover some of the complexities of terminology and usage that I think were missing – I'm sure they need some further work, but in the spirit of WP:BOLD/WP:BRD, I've made them some we've got some specifics to discuss and refine. Joe D (t) 00:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]