The trend today is towards unitary authorities; if government really wanted to save some money it could abolish borough councils in areas where unitary authorities do not already apply. Regarding the Computer the size of a small bungalow; I think this was earlier than the 1970s. I worked in a computerised Accountancy Centre on the railway between 1962 and 1968. In Lincoln where I first worked, the centre was housed in a modern 2 storey unit, quite a large one. Upstairs there were several offices, downstairs apart from the reception and the Senior Managers' offices there were two other rooms, a punch room where documents were entered onto Hollerith type cards for admission into the computer, and the computer room itself, must have been 100feet long X 40 wide. If I remember correctly the machine would only work on 11KV AC precisely, so outages were very frequent. Contrasty that with the late 1980s when everyone had a work station on their desk.
