'Twenty-three counties include all burghs within their area for parliamentary purposes.
chief Scottish law officer. The office of secretary for Scotland was restored in 1885, and in 1894 the Local Government Board for Scotland was established; in 1926 the secretaryship for Scot land was raised to a principal secretaryship of State with a seat in the cabinet. The department for Scottish affairs is the Scottish Office. The secretary for Scotland is the responsible head of the other departments by which Scottish business is administered, and he is assisted by the lord advocate and the solicitor general for Scotland, both of whom are members of the Government though not in the cabinet, and by the parliamentary and perma nent under-secretaries. Official publication of Scottish business is made in the Edinburgh Gazette. The other Scottish depart ments, each with its permanent secretary and offices in Edinburgh, are the Scottish Board of Health, which succeeded in 1919 to the former Local Government Board for Scotland; the General Board of Control (Scotland), which was constituted as a Board of Lunacy in 1857; the Scottish Education Department; the Board of Agriculture for Scotland; and the Fishery Board for Scotland. There is also a Scottish Valuation Office in Edinburgh under the administration of the Board of Inland Revenue for the United Kingdom. The Scottish Board of Health is the de partment concerned with local government. There are, however, no Scottish departments to answer for the functions and policy exercised by the Home Office, the Board of Trade and the Ministries of Transport, Labour and Pensions (see GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS) in respect to mines, emigration, electricity supply, roads and canals, unemployment, etc. The Scottish Office and the Scottish Education Department have offices in London, and the last named being a committee of the privy council, the lord president of the council signs the annual report as ex head of the department. The Scottish departments are also assisted by advisory committees or councils, such as the Highlands and Islands Consultative Council for the 7 northern counties con stituted under the Scottish Board of Health Act of 1919. By the Reorganization of Offices (Scotland) Act 1928, the Scottish Boards of Health and Agriculture and the prison commissioners for Scotland become departments as from Jan. 1929; the main effect of this is that they are under a single advisor instead of a group or board. Other Scottish officers are the keeper of the registers and records and the registrar-general.
Local government administration in Scotland follows the same general principles as in England. (See LOCAL GOVERNMENT.) But there are no urban or rural district councils in Scotland, poor relief is administered throughout by the parish councils, and education is entrusted to an ad hoc education authority for the county in place of the town, county and urban district councils in England. Public general Acts are sometimes modified, or their terms may be expressly excepted, with reference to their applica tion in Scotland; local authorities are held to have more inde pendent powers for raising loans and a simpler legal procedure for private bill legislation. On the whole, it is said, "independent powers have been more freely entrusted to small municipalities in Scotland than in England." Other differences are the levying of rates on both owner and occupier in Scotland; the election by town councils of their own magistrates or bailies for the burgh, as well as the closer relations to local bodies and wider administrative and judicial functions of the sheriffs.
Local Government Units.—The principal divisions of local government administration are the county, burgh and parish councils, with the education authorities already named. In ad dition, the following statutory bodies, mainly appointed by the county councils, may be named : the county district committees are the executive body of the council in each of the electoral divisions in which they are elected; the standing joint committee of the county is responsible for police administration and has control over all loans and capital expenditure; the county road board is the authority for road and bridge construction (mainte nance and administration lie with the district committees) ; and district boards of control for counties and combined counties (with representatives of parish councils and royal and parliamentary burghs) deal with lunacy under the General Board for the country. The total number of these authorities is thus : the 33 county councils with their respective standing joint committees, county road boards and education authorities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen are separate education authorities), and 27 district boards of control and 98 district committees; 201 burgh or town councils and 869 parish councils. There are 61 police districts, consisting of the 33 county and 28 burghal police districts. In addition, there are a number of statutory committees for particular purposes, such as finance, pensions, distress (un employment), school management, health insurance, etc., corn mittees, as well as joint committees of local bodies for purposes in which they are jointly interested, and special district com mittees for water supply, light, scavenging and drainage. About three-fourths of the population is "burghal," the remainder "land ward": terms used in Scotland to denote urban and rural. Twenty two burghs have a population of over 2o,000; 8 counties have less than 1 o,000 population and 5 have a smaller population than in 1801. Of the parishes, 653 are landward; 210 are partly landward, partly burghal.