Why Reform Local Government?

Abstract

A number of reasons for reforming local government have been proposed by public policy architects over recent years. These include, inter alia, the desire to reduce the number of local governments, a supposed need to increase the size of local government, efforts to enhance efficiency and redress waning financial sustainability, a desire to improve the quality of local government political representatives and executives, as well as to address voter disengagement or disillusionment with local government. In this chapter, I link these reasons to the reform options that will be covered in the remainder of this book. Notably, I also canvas my growing suspicion that local government reform is sometimes undertaken for reasons far removed from those articulated. I conclude by reflecting on how the various reforms might be expected to bring local government closer to the people and serve the people best.

Appendix

See Tables 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3.

Table 2.1 Number and size of municipal governments, 2017–18

Table 2.2 Local government expenditure and revenue by OECD jurisdiction, 2016

Table 2.3 Budget balance and debt for OECD local government jurisdictions, 2016