JONES, George <br/><br/>
Central-local relations since the layfield report 

 -  2002 
<br/><br/> The article reviws the developments in central-local relations since the LAyfield Report in 1976. It starts freom the Layfield analysis of the confusion about where responsibility lay for decisions on local government services, spending and taxing. It identifies a number of key changes - increased powers of intervention by central government, and its growing involvement in the internal working of local authorities - by both the Conservative government of 1979-97 and the present Labour government. It identifies a current tension between the government's expressed commitment to local democratic renewal and its increasing central control, concluding that the confusion identified by Layfield remains unresolved