Catalogue description Records of Local Government Policy

In 1951 duties relating to local government administration, environmental health services and housing were assigned to the new Ministry of Local Government and Planning, formed by the merger of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and the local government and environmental health divisions of the Ministry of Health. In November 1951, following the election of a Conservative government, the title of the department was changed to Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The re-styled department retained all the functions of the Ministry of Local Government and Planning. In November 1970 it was absorbed in the newly-created Department of the Environment.

From the earliest days of the Local Government Board the overwhelming preponderance of the work of central departments' local government branches has been casework in relation to individual local authorities; but there has also always been an element of policy work on matters such as housing, planning, distribution of central government grant, loan sanction, revenue raising, audit, pollution, water supply and sewerage, councils' powers and duties, boundaries, elections, etc. At some periods policy in some of these fields was dealt with by specialist departments, and the preserved records will be found with the records of those specialist departments; but there has continued to be a nucleus of local government 'general' departments.