What exactly are 'Unitary Authorities'?

[elliot]

What exactly are 'Unitary Authorities'?  What do they measure?  Are these of any value in genealogy recording when we already have Counties and Towns?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unitary_authorities_of_England

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_administrative_counties_and_county_boroughs_of_England_by_population_in_1971

[ggrocott]

also from wikipedia

Unitary authorities are a type of local authority responsible for all local government services in an area. They combine the functions of a non-metropolitan county council and a non-metropolitan district council, which elsewhere in England provide two tiers of local government.

Unitary authorities are constituted under the Local Government Act 1992, which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to allow the existence of non-metropolitan counties that do not have multiple districts. Most were established during the 1990s, with more created in 2009 and 2019–23. The size of the areas governed by unitary authorities varies greatly; the authorities created in the 1990s were generally created from single districts and covered a single large town or city, while those created since 2009 often cover entire non-metropolitan counties.

[Spelk]

For family history or genealogy purposes they are irrelevant. Same applies to the messing around with counties in the last half century. That’s why Rootschat and all the other organisations refer to places in Yorkshire as being in one of the three Ridings. The current divisions of North East and West Yorkshire have no relevance to the places our ancestors lived. Is there a South Yorkshire these days? I don’t know and it is really of no relevance to me, only the people who currently live there.

[elliot]

Many thanks for your clarity!

[Biggles50]

To give one example.

Blackpool used to be part of Lancashire County Council and the LCC provided certain services ie fire, education, transport, highways etc

Blackpool is now a Unitary Authority and provides said services itself.