Welsh local authority employment since 1979: Political party effects in district councils

Abstract

Hoggart K. (1985) Welsh local authority employment since 1979; political party effects in district councils, Reg. Studies 19, 447–457. This paper investigates changes in district council workforce levels in Wales between 1979 and 1982. At this time, when the Conservative Government was pressing for reductions in local authority employment, the Labour Party was arguing for the maintenance of public service provisions. On this basis, it is hypothesized that Labour controlled councils should have recorded the lowest rates of employment loss. After developing a normative model to account for local employment changes, multiple regression techniques are employed to test the hypothesis that political party control did affect workforce reduction rates. The results show that Labour councils' performances on the employment front were in fact no different from those of other district councils.