The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c. 65) is an Act of

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

that altered

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

on 16 May 1975. The Act followed and largely implemented the report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland in 1969 (the

Wheatley Report The Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland, usually called the Wheatley Commission or the Wheatley Report (Cmnd. 4150), was published in September 1969 by the chairmanship of Lord Wheatley. Its recommendations led to a new system of reg ...

), and it made the most far-reaching changes to Scottish local government in centuries. It swept away the

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

, burghs and districts established by the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6 c. 65) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that reformed local government in Scotland, on 1 October 1947. Section 1 of the Act reads "For the purposes of local government, ...

,Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947. which were largely based on units of local government dating from the Middle Ages, and replaced them with a uniform two-tier system of regional and district councils (except in the islands, which were given unitary, all-purpose councils). In

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

established a similar system of two-tier

administrative county An administrative county was a first-level administrative division in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974, and in Ireland from 1899 until either 1973 (in Northern Ireland) or 2002 (in the Republic of Ireland). They are now abolished, although mos ...

and

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

councils.

The Act

The Act abolished previous existing local government structures and created a two-tier system of regions and districts on the mainland and a unitary system in the islands. The former counties remained in use for land registration purposes. The Act also established the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland, with the remit to make proposals to the Secretary of State for effecting changes which it thought desirable in the interests of effective and convenient local government. The Act also abolished the use of

Fiars Prices Fiars Prices is an expression in old Scots law given to the average prices of each of the different sorts of grain grown in each county, as fixed annually by the sheriff, usually after the verdict of a jury. Citations: *Paterson's ''Historical Ac ...

for valuing grain.

The new local government areas

Regions

Island areas

Districts

Several districts were later renamed: Merrick becoming

Wigtown Wigtown ( (both used locally); gd, Baile na h-Ùige) is a town and former royal burgh in Wigtownshire, of which it is the county town, within the Dumfries and Galloway region in Scotland. It lies east of Stranraer and south of Newton Stewart. ...

, Argyll to

Argyll and Bute Argyll and Bute ( sco, Argyll an Buit; gd, Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bòd, ) is one of 32 unitary authority council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant for Argyll and Bute is Jane Margaret MacLeod (14 July 2020) ...

, Bishopbriggs and Kirkintilloch to

Strathkelvin Strathkelvin ( gd, Srath Chealbhainn) is the strath of the River Kelvin in west central Scotland, close to the city of Glasgow. The name Strathkelvin was formerly (1975–96) used for one of nineteen local government districts in the Strathclyde ...

, Cumbernauld to Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, and Lanark to

Clydesdale Clydesdale is an archaic name for Lanarkshire, a traditional county in Scotland. The name may also refer to: Sports * Clydesdale F.C., a former football club in Glasgow * Clydesdale RFC, Glasgow, a former rugby union club * Clydesdale RFC, South ...

Reaction and aftermath

Unlike the 1972 Local Government Act in England and Wales, the 1973 Act in Scotland used the term for the upper tier of the two-tier system. This has caused far less confusion over the identity of the counties in Scotland. Despite the Act stipulating that the regions, not counties, should be shown on

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

maps, the counties still enjoy wide public recognition. Even though they no longer play any direct part in local government, counties are used in many other systems. The Royal Mail continued to use them as postal counties, and the

Watsonian vice-counties A vice-county (vice county or biological vice-county) is a geographical division of the British Isles used for the purposes of biological recording and other scientific data-gathering. It is sometimes called a Watsonian vice-county as vice-cou ...

registration counties A registration county was, in Great Britain and Ireland, a statistical unit used for the registration of births, deaths and marriages and for the output of census information. In Scotland registration counties are used for land registration purpose ...

and many of the

Lieutenancy areas of Scotland The lieutenancy areas of Scotland are the areas used for the ceremonial lord-lieutenants, the monarch's representatives, in Scotland. The lord-lieutenants' titles chosen by the monarch and his legal advisers are mainly based on placenames of the ...

are based on them. However, the sheer size of some regions meant that it became cumbersome to administer all functions on a region-wide basis. By 1977 Strathclyde Regional Council had established unelected sub-Regional Councils, which resembled the County Councils that the Regional Council had replaced. The two-tier system of local government introduced by the act lasted until 1 April 1996 when the

Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 The Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 (c. 39) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which created the current local government structure of 32 unitary authorities covering the whole of Scotland. It abolished the two-tie ...

came into effect, abolishing the regions and districts and replacing them with 32 unitary authorities.

References

*Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. *Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland, 1969. {{UK legislation Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning Scotland History of local government in Scotland United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1973 1973 in Scotland October 1973 events in the United Kingdom