Unitary authority

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Unitary authority" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A unitary authority is a type of local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a multiple tiers of local government.

Typically unitary authorities cover

In New Zealand, a unitary authority is a territorial authority (district, city or metropolitan area) that also performs the functions of a regional council (first-level division). There are five unitary authorities, they are (with the year they were constituted): Gisborne District Council (1989), Tasman District Council (1992), Nelson City Council (1992), Marlborough District Council (1992), and Auckland Council (2010).^[1][2]

The Chatham Islands, located east of the South Island, have a council with its own special legislation, constituted (1995) with powers similar to those of a regional authority.^[3][4]

Each of the four countries of the United Kingdom uses a different term to describe their unitary authorities. However, the Office for National Statistics uses the collective term 'unitary administration' to describe all local government areas which operate as unitary authorities.^[5]

In

This is distinct from the two-tier system of local government which still exists in most of England, where local government functions are divided between county councils (the upper tier) and district or borough councils. Until 1996 two-tier systems existed in Scotland and Wales, but these have now been replaced by systems based on a single tier of local government with some functions shared between groups of adjacent authorities. A single-tier system has existed in Northern Ireland since 1973.

For many years the description of the number of tiers in UK local government arrangements has routinely ignored any current or previous bodies at the lowest level of authorities elected by the voters within their area such as parish (in England and Wales) or community councils; such bodies do not exist or have not existed in all areas.

Northern Ireland is divided into eleven districts for local government purposes. In Northern Ireland local councils have no responsibility for education, road building or housing (though they do nominate members to the advisory

Local authorities in

Local authorities in

• In Canada, each province creates its own system of local government, including several analogous to unitary authorities:
  • In Alberta and Nova Scotia there is only one level of local government in that province.
  • In
    single-tier municipalities
    is used, for a similar concept.
• In Germany,
  Gemeinde (municipality) and the Kreis
  (district, literally circle) administrative level.
• In France, the city of Paris works like a department council and a municipal council. The department councils of the two departments of Corsica and of the region merged into a collectivité territoriale.
• In Poland, a City with powiat rights, or "urban county", is a city which is also responsible for district (poviat) administrative level, being part of no other powiat (e.g. Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań). In total, 66 cities in Poland have this status.
• In Taiwan, most cities have only one tier of local government. Unlike the three county-administered cities (Chiayi, Keelung, and Hsinchu), they are independent of their surrounding county. Special municipalities, with the exception of a few mountain indigenous districts within them, are also unitary.
• In the United States, there are several types of single-tier governments.
  • In the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and much of Massachusetts, county government has been abolished, and the municipalities (known as New England towns) are the only governing tier below the state government.
  • In Virginia, all municipalities with city status are, by definition, independent from any county.
  • The District of Columbia has had no lower tiers of government since the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871.