|
For local government purposes, Wales has since 1 April 1996 been divided into 22 single-tier principal areas.〔Local Government (Wales) Act 1994〕 The elected councils of these areas are responsible for the provision of all local government services, including education, social work, environmental protection, and most highways. Below these there are also (in most, but not all, parts of the principal areas) elected community councils to which responsibility for specific aspects of the application of local policy may be devolved. The principal areas are variously styled as ''county'', ''county borough'', ''city'' or ''city and county'', although this is a distinction not always respected in the media, including the BBC, which refers to all 22 areas simply as counties.〔(BBC Wales ) A listing of "each of the 22 Welsh counties". 23.12.05〕〔(BBC Wales North West: Conwy County )〕 The Queen appoints a Lord Lieutenant to represent her in each of the eight preserved counties of Wales, which are combinations of principal areas retained for ceremonial purposes. Subdivisions of Wales created for such purposes as the provision of police and emergency services and the organization of the National Health Service are made up of combinations of principal areas. The Dyfed-Powys Police force, for example, operates in the area covered by the principal areas of Powys, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, and Carmarthenshire – the latter three constituting the preserved county of Dyfed. In April 2013, it was announced that a major review was to be undertaken into local government organisation in Wales, with a Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery to be chaired by Sir Paul Williams. The Commission's report was published in January 2014, and recommended a reduction in the number of principal area councils to between 10 and 12. ==Cities== There are six cities in total in Wales: in addition to the three principal areas with city status (Cardiff, Swansea and Newport), the communities of Bangor, St David's and St Asaph also have the status. City status is determined by letters patent. * Bangor - time indeterminate * Cardiff 1905 * Swansea 1969 * St David's and the Cathedral Close 1994 * Newport 2002 * St Asaph 2012 St Asaph, as the seat of a bishopric, was historically referred to as a city, and was described as such in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The status was never officially recognised, however. When city status was restored to St David's in 1994, St Asaph town council submitted a petition for the same purpose. The petition was refused as, unlike St David's, there was no evidence of any charter or letters patent in the past conferring the status. Applications for city status in competitions in 2000 and 2002 were unsuccessful. However, city status was finally granted in 2012 when St Asaph won the accolade as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Local government in Wales」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|