The Evolution of Devolved Government in the UK: Some Implications for Reforming Taiwan’s Speical Municipality
Pao-Chien Wang*
Abstract
Taiwan amended the Local Government Act in 2009 by giving its central government more power to reform local authorities. In December 2014, the six special municipalities are established in Taiwan. After establishing so many special municipalities, many issues need to be handled, such as the gap between the core and periphery area, the failure of the reinventing government, the less quality of public service, the worse finance of the government. How do we rebuild Taiwan’s special municipality? This paper reviews the experience of the British local government reform and the evolution of the devolved government among the Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This paper employs the historical institutionalism and the case study as methodology. Through analyzing the development of the London, this paper suggests that the special municipality should be classified as devolved government. Moreover, this paper gives some suggestions to rebuild the special municipality in Taiwan.
Keywords: County Changes to Special Municipality, Devolved Government, Localism Act 2011, City Deals, Decentralization
* Ph.D., Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University. Assistant Research Fellow, Center for Hakka Studies, National Taiwan University, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Hakka Language and Social Sciences, National Central University email: d93341008@ntu.edu.tw.