Local Government Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used for legislation in Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United Kingdom, relating to local government.
The Bill for an Act with this short title may have been known as a Local Government Bill during its passage through Parliament.
Local Government Acts may be a generic name either for legislation bearing that short title or for all legislation which relates to local government.
See also: Local government in Victoria.
Many other acts entitled "Local Government Act" have been passed—as well as even more of the form "Local Government (Specific Matter) Act"—but these are the major ones which define the terms in which the others operate or alter. All but the last have had the long titles "An act to consolidate the Law(s) relating to Local Government". Additional acts concerning local government in the early days of the colony did not have short titles.
The following list of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom only includes public general acts, and so does not include any of the numerous "provisional order confirmation acts"
| Act | Summary | |
|---|---|---|
| Local Government (Drogheda and Meath) Act 1845 Note that this short title is only used in Ireland | ||
| Replaced Public Health Act 1848 | ||
| Created county councils and county boroughs in England and Wales | ||
| Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 | Created county councils in Scotland | |
| Created rural and urban districts in England and Wales | ||
| Created Local Government Board and parish councils in Scotland | ||
| Created county councils, rural and urban districts in Ireland | ||
| Amended the rules for the creation of county boroughs | ||
| Provision for county review orders to amend districts; poor law boards abolished in England and Wales | ||
| Created large and small burghs and district councils; poor law reformed in Scotland | ||
| Consolidated earlier legislation in England and Wales | ||
| Initiated reviews of large urbanised areas, made provision for rural boroughs | ||
| Ended reviews started by the 1958 Act | ||
| Created metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties in England and Wales | ||
| Local authorities going above spending limits could have general grants removed | ||
| The freedom of information law for local government. It provided greater public access to meetings, reports and documents, subject to its confidentiality provisions. | ||
| Abolished the Greater London Council and the county councils of the metropolitan counties | ||
| Local Government Finance Act 1987 | ||
| Introduced the controversial Section 28 | ||
| introduced the principle of 'politically restricted posts' and restricting the political activities of local authority employees. | ||
| Made provision for the creation of unitary districts in England | ||
| Created current unitary structure in Wales | ||
| Created current unitary structure in Scotland | ||
| Requirement for most authorities in England and Wales to achieve 'best value' | ||
| Introduced directly elected mayors and replaced the traditional committee system of decision-making with the executive model and introduced scrutiny to local government. | ||