I’d like to talk about (1) in England and Wales, and in England and Wales there are (2) of council. For instance, if I could tak

I’d like to talk about local government in England and Wales, and in England and Wales there are two main types of council. For instance, if I could take the example of Oxfordshire, there is one county council where they are responsible for education, social services, structure planning, highways, libraries and museums, and so on. And there are five district councils, again in Oxfordshire, and they are responsible for housing, in particular council housing, for local plans, for dustbin collection, environmental health, and they’re also responsible for swimming baths, and in Oxford, for instance, they are building an ice-rink in the middle of the city.
    If we could talk particularly about the question of education, I think this would illustrate the idea of local government in the best way possible. First of all, there is a minister at central government level.  He is the Minister for Education and he’s responsible for running a comprehensive education system in the whole country. But in practice there is a lot of local control. So the local councils, county councils such as Oxfordshire County Council, actually run the schools and colleges in their areas.