The Governance of British Public-Housing Investment in the Late-1970s: Central Encouragement of Comparative Local Diversity

The thesis of this paper is that in the latter 1970s central government encouraged diversity in housing investment by English and Welsh local authorities. This was so particularly in Wales. This diversity was encouraged on the basis of local performance, rather than on the basis of measured local needs. Was this diversity encouraged to further local ‘autonomy’, or simply to achieve expenditure targets when local authorities were underspending in the central government's view? This thesis raises questions as to the role of consensus between central departments and local authorities, and about the constitutional location of public-housing provision in Britain.