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Local government in the United Kingdom

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Politics and government

   There is no single system of local government in the United Kingdom.
   The United Kingdom is made up of constituent countries, England,
   Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each has a different system of
   local government.

Structure

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

   These three parts of the United Kingdom each have devolved legislature
   and government - the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive, the
   National Assembly for Wales and Welsh Assembly Government, and the
   Northern Ireland Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive (both
   suspended) respectively. These bodies are part of the national, rather
   than local, tier of government in the UK.

   They each use a pattern of unitary authorities, meaning there is a
   single tier of local government. There are 32 council areas in
   Scotland, 22 counties and county boroughs in Wales, and 26 districts in
   Northern Ireland.

   The rest of this article excludes the situation in Scotland, see Local
   government in Scotland.

England

   Counties and unitary authorities of England
   Counties and unitary authorities of England

   The pattern in England is more complex. Unlike the other three
   constituent countries England has no separate governing body for the
   whole of it other than that of the Government of the United Kingdom
   (for the issue of an English legislature, see devolved English
   parliament). It is subdivided into 9 regions. One of these, London, has
   an elected Assembly and Mayor, but the others have a relatively minor
   role, with unelected regional assemblies and Regional Development
   Agencies.

   Excluding Greater London, England has two different patterns of local
   government in use. In some areas there is a county council responsible
   for some services within a county, with several district councils
   responsible for other services. These councils are elected in separate
   elections. Some areas have only one level of local government, and
   these are dubbed unitary authorities.

   Councils of counties are called 'X County Council', whereas district
   councils can be 'District Council', 'Borough Council', or 'City
   Council' depending upon the status of the district. Unitary authorities
   may be called County Councils, Metropolitan Borough Councils, Borough
   Councils,City Councils, District Councils, or sometimes just Councils.
   These names do not change the role or authority of the council.

   Overall responsibility for issues such as transport in Greater London
   is vested in the Greater London Authority. London is then divided into
   32 London boroughs and the City of London, which have powers between a
   normal district and a unitary authority.

   Structure of English administrative divisions (since 1995)
   Region level: Region Region Region Region
   County level: Metropolitan county Shire county Unitary authority
   Greater London
   District level: Metropolitan district Shire district n/a London borough
   Parish level: (Civil parish) (Civil parish) (Civil parish) n/a

Councils and councillors

   Councils have historically had no split between executive or
   legislature. Functions are vested in the council itself, and then
   exercised usually by committees or subcommittees of the council. The
   post of leader was recognised, and leaders typically chair several
   important committees, but had no special authority. The chair of the
   council itself is an honorary position with no real power.

   Under section 15 the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, committees
   must roughly reflect the political party makeup of the council; before
   it was permitted for a party with control of the council to 'pack'
   committees with their own members.

   This pattern was based on that established for municipal boroughs by
   the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and then later adopted for county
   councils and rural districts.

   In 2000 Parliament passed the Local Government Act 2000 to require
   councils to move to an executive-based system, either with the council
   leader and a cabinet acting as an executive authority, or with a
   directly-elected mayor, either with a mayor and cabinet drawn from the
   councillors; or a mayor and council manager. There is a small exception
   to this whereby smaller district councils (population of less than
   80,000) can adopt a modified committee system.

   Most councils are using the council leader and cabinet option, whilst
   52 smaller councils have been allowed to propose alternative
   arrangements based on the older system (Section 31 of the Act), and
   Brighton and Hove invoked a similar provision (Section 27(2)(b)) when a
   referendum to move to a directly-elected mayor was defeated.

   There are now twelve directly-elected mayors, in districts where a
   referendum was in favour of them. Many of the mayors are independents
   (notably in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, which in parliamentary
   elections are usually Labour Party strongholds). Since May 2002 only a
   handful of referendums have been held, and they have all been negative
   apart from Torbay. Of the mayors, all but Stoke-on-Trent's are mayor
   and cabinet-based. Having won the 2005 General Election and a third
   term of office, the government is approaching the issue in a new way
   and is considering introducing new Elected Mayors on the basis of
   larger 'City Region' areas which will mean a reorganisation of the
   local authorities affected into larger units with wider powers. In any
   case, the issue may be given fresh impetus with a number of Mayoral
   referenda being triggered by campaigns receiving the necessary 5%
   support of the local authority electorate.

   The Executive, in whichever form, is held to account by the remainder
   of the Councillors acting as the ' Overview and Scrutiny function' -
   calling the Executive to account for their actions and to justify their
   future plans. As a relatively new concept within local government, this
   is arguably an under-developed part of local municipal administration.
   In a related development, the Health and Social Care Act 2001, Police
   and Justice Act 2006, and 2006 local government white paper set out a
   role for local government Overview and Scrutiny in creating greater
   local accountability for a range of public sector organisations.

Officers

   Councillors cannot do the work of the council themselves, and so are
   responsible for appointment and oversight of officers, who are
   delegated to perform most tasks. Local authorities nowadays have to
   appoint a 'Chief Executive Officer', with overall responsibility for
   council employees, and who operates in conjunction with department
   heads. The Chief Executive Officer position is weak compared to the
   council manager system seen in other countries (and in Stoke).

   In some areas, much of the work previously undertaken directly by
   council employees has been privatised.

Functions and powers

   Districts are responsible for leisure, environmental health, housing —
   including the provision of social housing and housing benefit, rubbish
   collection, and local roads. Counties are responsible for more
   strategic services such as education, libraries, main roads, social
   services, trading standards and transport. Unitary authorities exercise
   all these functions.

   All sorts of councils also have a general power to 'promote economic,
   social and environmental well-being' of their area. However, like all
   public bodies, they are limited by the doctrine of ultra vires, and may
   only do things that common law or an Act of Parliament specifically or
   generally allows for - in contrast to the earlier incorporated
   municipal corporations which were treated as natural persons and could
   undertake whatever activities they wished to.

   Councils may promote Local Acts in Parliament to grant them special
   powers. For example, Kingston upon Hull, had for many years a
   municipally-owned telephone company, Kingston Communications.

Joint-boards

   Local authorities sometimes provide services on a joint basis with
   other authorities, through bodies known as joint-boards. Joint-boards
   are not directly elected but are made up of councillors appointed from
   the authorities which are covered by the service.

   Typically joint-boards are created to avoid splitting up certain
   services when unitary authorities are created, or a county or regional
   council is abolished.

   In other cases, if several authorities are considered too small (either
   in terms of geographic size or population) to run a service effectively
   by themselves, joint-boards are established. Typical services run by
   joint-boards include policing, fire services, public transport and
   sometimes waste disposal authorities.

   If a county is too small to justify its own police force, a joint
   police force is used which covers several counties, for example the
   West Mercia Constabulary covers Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin,
   Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

   In the six metropolitan counties the metropolitan borough councils,
   also appoint members to joint county-wide Passenger Transport
   Authorities to oversee public transport, and joint waste disposal
   authorities, which were created after the county councils were
   abolished.

   Joint-boards were used extensively in Greater London when the Greater
   London Council was abolished, to avoid splitting up some London wide
   services. but these functions have now been taken over by the Greater
   London Authority.

   Similar arrangements exist in Berkshire where the county council was
   abolished, and in some former Scottish regions such as Strathclyde,
   where the regional councils have been abolished.

   If a joint body is legally required to exist it is known as a
   joint-board. However local authorities sometimes create joint bodies
   voluntarily and these are known as joint-committees .

Corporation of London

   The City of London covers a square mile (2.6 km²) in the heart of
   London. It is governed by the Corporation of London, which has a unique
   structure. The Corporation has been broadly untouched by local
   government reforms and democratisation. The business vote was abolished
   for other parts of the country in 1969, but due to the low resident
   population of the City this was thought impractical. In fact, the
   business vote was recently extended in the City to cover more
   companies.

Funding

   Local councils are funded by a combination of central government
   grants, Council Tax (a locally set tax based on house value), Business
   Rates, and fees and charges from certain services including
   decriminalised parking enforcement. The proportion of revenue that
   comes from Council Tax is low, meaning that if a council wishes to
   increase its funding modestly, it has to put up Council Tax by a large
   amount. Central government retains the right to 'cap' Council Tax if it
   deems it to be too much. This is an area of debate in British politics
   at the moment, with councils and central government blaming each other
   for council tax rises.

   Council Tax is collected by the district-level council. Authorities
   such as the GLA, parish councils, county councils, passenger transport
   authorities, fire authorities, police authorities, and national parks
   authorities can make a precept. This shows up as an independent element
   on council tax bills, but is collected by the district and funnelled to
   the precepting authority. Some joint ventures are instead funded by
   levy.

Elections

England and Wales

   The area which the council covers is divided into electoral divisions -
   known in district councils as ' wards', and in county councils as
   'electoral divisions'. Each ward can return one or more members -
   multi-member wards are quite common. There is no requirement for the
   size of wards to be the same within a district, so one ward can return
   one member and another ward can return two. Metropolitan borough wards
   must return a multiple of three councillors, whilst until the Local
   Government Act 2003 multiple-member county electoral divisions were
   forbidden.

   In the election, the candidates to receive the most votes win - the
   multi-member plurality system. There is no element of proportional
   representation, so if four candidates from the Mauve Party poll 2,000
   votes each, and four candidates from the Taupe Party poll 1,750 votes
   each, all four Mauve candidates will be returned, and no Taupe
   candidates will. Although this has been said to be undemocratic, minor
   and local single-issue parties do tend to do much better at local
   elections than they do in general elections, so the case for reform is
   perhaps less clear. In any event, the system is not likely to change
   for the foreseeable future.

   The term of a councillor is usually four years. Councils may be elected
   wholly, every four years, or 'by thirds', where a third of the
   councillors get elected each year, with one year with no elections.
   Recently the 'by halves' system, whereby half of the council is elected
   every two years, has been allowed. All Welsh councils are elected all
   at once on a four-year cycle, the year after the Welsh Assembly
   elections.

   Sometimes wholesale boundary revisions will mean the entire council
   will be re-elected, before returning to the previous elections by
   thirds or by halves over the coming years.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

   In Scotland, the Labour- Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive coalition
   agreed to introduce the single transferable vote for local government
   elections from 2007 onwards as part of its programme for government for
   the 2003-2007 session of the Scottish Parliament. Proportional
   representation for local government was a long-standing objective of
   the Liberal Democrats, and the party made it a non-negotiable condition
   of their signing up to a second coalition with Labour. Legal effect was
   given to the parties' agreed policy by the Local Governance (Scotland)
   Act 2004. Wards will elect three or four members each, and elections
   will continue to take place on the same day as those to the Holyrood
   legislature.

   Elections take place every four years, the same year as the elections
   to the Scottish Parliament. This recently replaced a three-year cycle.
   The last elections took place in 2003 (see United Kingdom local
   elections, 2003), and the next elections are due in 2007 (see United
   Kingdom local elections, 2007).

   In Northern Ireland, local elections also use STV, with several
   multi-member electoral areas in each district. As in Scotland,
   elections take place for the whole council every four years. The last
   elections took place in 2005 (see United Kingdom local elections,
   2005), and the next elections are due in 2009 (see United Kingdom local
   elections, 2009).

Parishes and communities

   Below the district level, a district may be divided into several civil
   parishes. In Wales and Scotland parishes are instead known as '
   communities'. Collectively these are known as 'local councils'.

   Some civil parishes are deemed too small to have a feasible parish
   council. So, instead, they hold parish meetings which all residents can
   attend and normally speak at. Furthermore, several parishes that form a
   single contiguous area may share either a parish council or a parish
   meeting, even though the constituent parishes still maintain their
   otherwise separate identity, and even have separate parish wards that
   can elect parish councillors.

   Local councils have various local responsibilities. Typical activities
   undertaken by a parish council include allotments, parks, public
   clocks, and entering Britain in Bloom. They also have a consultative
   role in planning.

   The absence or presence of local councils does not count towards
   whether a district is unitary or not. Councils such as districts,
   counties and unitaries are known as principal local authorities in
   order to differentiate them in their legal status from parish and town
   councils, which are not uniform in their existence.

   Local councils tend not to exist in metropolitan areas but there is
   nothing to stop their establishment. For example, Birmingham has a
   parish, New Frankley. However, parishes have not existed in Greater
   London since 1965 but a recent government White paper and the 2005
   Labour Party election manifesto signalled that the legislative ban
   would be lifted to enable their creation.

   In some districts, the rural area is parished and the urban is not -
   such as in the borough of Shrewsbury and Atcham, where the town of
   Shrewsbury is unparished and has no local councils, while the
   countryside around the town is parished. In others, there is a more
   complex mixture, as in the case of Crewe and Nantwich, where Nantwich
   is parished, Crewe is not, and many parishes share a parish council
   with neighbouring parishes.

Boundaries

   Responsibility for minor revisions to local government areas falls to a
   different body in each part of the UK: the Boundary Committee for
   England, the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland, the
   Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales and the Local Government
   Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland.

   Revisions are usually undertaken to avoid borders straddling new
   development, to bring them back into line with a diverted watercourse,
   or to align them with roads or other features.

Sizes

   Sizes of council areas vary widely. The most populated unitary
   authority area in England is Birmingham (a metropolitan borough) with
   977,087 people (2001 census), and the least populated non-metropolitan
   unitary area is Rutland with 34,563. However, these are outliers, and
   most English unitary authorities have a population in the range 150,000
   to 300,000.

   The smallest non-unitary district in England is Teesdale at 24,457
   people, and the largest Northampton at 194,458. All but 9 non-unitary
   English districts have less than 150,000, though.

Names

   Where a district is coterminous with a town, the name is an easy choice
   to make. In some cases, a district is named after its main town,
   despite there being other towns in the district. Confusingly, such
   districts sometimes have city status, and so for example the City of
   Canterbury contains several towns apart from Canterbury, which have
   distinct identities. Similarly City of Chester contains a number of
   large villages and extensive countryside, which is quite distinct from
   the main settlement of Chester.

   They can be named after traditional subdivisions ( Spelthorne), rivers
   ( Eden, Arun), a modified version of their main town's name (
   Harborough, Wycombe), or after a geographical feature in the district (
   Cotswold, Cannock Chase). Purely geographical names can also be used (
   South Bucks, Suffolk Coastal, North West Leicestershire).

   In Great Britain, councils have a general power to change the name of
   the district, and consequently their own name. In England and Wales
   this is exercised under section 74 of the Local Government Act 1972.
   Such a resolution must have two thirds of the votes at a meeting
   convened for the purpose.

Ceremonial functions

   The boroughs are in many cases descendants of boroughs set up hundreds
   of years ago, and so have accreted a number of traditions and
   ceremonial functions.

   In borough councils not to have adopted a directly-elected mayor; the
   chair of the council is the mayor. In certain cities the mayor is known
   as the Lord Mayor. Councils may make people honorary freemen or
   honorary aldermen.

History

   Local government in a recognisably modern form emerged during the late
   19th century. Most importantly, the Local Government Act 1888 created
   county councils and county boroughs across England and Wales, the
   following year this was extended to Scotland, and by 1898 to Ireland.

   Further reforms in the 1890s divided counties in England, Wales and
   Ireland into various lower-tier districts, including rural districts,
   urban districts, municipal boroughs, and in the County of London,
   metropolitan boroughs.

   The system created in the late 19th century, survived largely unchanged
   for most of the 20th century. The first major reform took place in 1965
   when Greater London was created with a new Greater London Council
   replacing the old London County Council.

   Another large scale reform took place in 1974, by the Local Government
   Act 1972. This abolished county boroughs and created a uniform two-tier
   system everywhere. In England it created Metropolitan and
   non-metropolitan counties, which were sub-divided into non-metropolitan
   and metropolitan districts, and merged some smaller counties such as
   Rutland (into Leicestershire), Herefordshire and Worcestershire (into
   Hereford and Worcester). A number of new counties were created
   including Avon, Humberside and Cleveland. Several of the new counties
   created were called metropolitan counties which had a different
   division of powers between county and district councils. In Wales the
   Act created a set of entirely new counties for local government
   purposes.

   In 1975 Scotland's counties were abolished and replaced with two-tier
   Regions and districts.

   From 1974 (1975 in Scotland) to 1986, the whole of England, Scotland
   and Wales had a two-tier system, with district councils and county (or
   in Scotland, regional) councils.

   This was changed in 1986 by the abolition of metropolitan county
   councils and the Greater London Council. A local government reform took
   place in the 1990s, which was instituted by the then Conservative Major
   government. Scotland and Wales moved to a fully unitary system in 1996,
   whilst expansion of unitary government in England happened haphazardly,
   leaving parts of the country unitary, and other parts two-tier — a
   system similar to that which prevailed between 1890 and 1974 in the
   whole of Great Britain. Unitary local government was inserted as a
   precondition for the introduction of any elected Regional Assemblies
   under the Labour government's former plans to introduce such bodies
   prior to the rejection by referendum in North East in November 2004.
   The government then said that it had no plans to introduce unitary
   local government in England but since the General Election the
   government has floated the idea of voluntary mergers of local councils,
   avoiding a costly reorganisation but achieving desired reform. For
   instance, the guiding principles of the government's 'New Localism'
   demand levels of efficiency not present in the current over-duplicated
   two-tier structure.

   The system in Northern Ireland dates from 1973; before then a system
   was used identical to that used on the mainland before 1974. It does
   not resemble the systems on the mainland in that the 26 district
   councils are mainly responsible for environmental services, with
   education and social services being provided at the provincial level
   through area boards run from the various civil service departments. The
   Review of Public Administration, which ran from 2002 to 2005, examined
   the options for reducing the number of district councils in the
   province while passing powers down to new councils and has proposed
   seven new 'super councils'.

Future in England

   The Government released a Local Government White Paper on October 26,
   2006, Strong and Prosperous Communities, which deals with the structure
   of local government. The White Paper does not deal with the issues of
   local government funding or of reform or replacement of the Council
   Tax, which is awaiting the final report of the Lyons Review. A Local
   Government Bill has been introduced in the 2006-2007 session of
   Parliament.

   The White Paper emphasises the concept of "double devolution", with
   more powers being granted to councils, and powers being devolved from
   town halls to community levels. It proposes to reduce the level of
   central government oversight over local authorities; by removing
   centrally-set performance targets, and statutory controls of the
   Secretary of State over parish councils, bye-laws, and electoral
   arrangements. The White Paper proposes that the existing prohibition on
   parish councils in Greater London will be abolished, and making new
   parishes easier to set up. Parish councils can currently be styled
   parish councils, town councils or city councils: the White Paper
   proposes that "community council", "neighbourhood council" and "village
   council" may be used as well.

   It invites local authorities to submit consensus-based proposals for
   unitary authority status, to be submitted before 25 January, 2007.
   Selected submissions will be subjected to a public consultation from
   March until June: the government will make final announcements in July
   2007. Elections to the new authorities would take place in 2008, with
   them taking up their powers on April 1, 2009. It has been suggested
   that the 2007 council elections might be suspended because of this, to
   avoid electing councils which would be replaced by new councils the
   following year.

   The White Paper proposes to strengthen the council executives, and
   provides an option between a directly-elected mayor; a directly-elected
   executive; or an indirectly elected leader; with a fixed 4-year term.
   It promises that the Department for Transport will put forward
   proposals for a reform of the Passenger Transport Authorities.

   Various local councils have indicated they will seek unitary authority
   status. Four medium-sized towns and historic county boroughs,
   overlooked by the 1990s review: Ipswich, Oxford, Norwich and Exeter are
   hoping for unitary status on their present boundaries, and commissioned
   a report jointly to press their case. Norwich has announced its
   intention to respond to the invitation, as have Ipswich and Exeter.
   Cambridge, a similarly-sized town which never achieved county borough
   status, is also considering its position.

   In Lancashire, Preston and South Ribble desired to form a single
   unitary authority although Preston's bid is for it alone. The City of
   Lancaster also is considering seeking unitary status on its present
   boundaries (having supported a merger with South Lakeland and
   Barrow-in-Furness to form a Morecambe Bay unitary authority during the
   referendums review). Blackpool has advocated a merger with the Fylde
   and Wyre districts, which they do not support.. Pendle and Burnley have
   also tried to form a unitary authority with Rossendale however
   Rossendale rejected this and the overall decison now lies with the
   Boundaries Commison

   The Local Government Chronicle suggests that the non-metropolitan
   counties of Cornwall, Shropshire, Durham, Cumbria and Northumberland
   may fit the government's criteria, and that the government is unlikely
   to favour carving out unitary authorities from existing two-tier
   counties. Shropshire County Council, as well as two of the five
   districts of Shropshire, have stated that they wish for a move to
   unitary status. The issue is being considered in Durham and Cumbria. In
   Cumbria the idea of a North Cumbria authority covering the Eden,
   Copeland, Carlisle and Allerdale districts has seen some support. The
   issue is also being considered in Northumberland, with the County
   Council in favour of one Northumberland unitary authority. Alan Beith,
   the MP for Berwick at the far north of Northumberland, has suggested
   instead a three unitary solution, with authorities for the largely
   rural north and south-west, and an authority for the urban south-east (
   Wansbeck and Blyth Valley).

   A report released by the IPPR's Centre for Cities in February 2006,
   City Leadership: giving city regions the power to grow, proposed the
   creation of two large city-regions based on Manchester and Birmingham :
   the Birmingham one would cover the existing West Midlands metropolitan
   county, along with Bromsgrove, Cannock Chase, Lichfield, North
   Warwickshire, Redditch and Tamworth, whilst the Manchester one would
   cover the existing Greater Manchester along with the borough of
   Macclesfield. No firm proposals of this sort appear in the White Paper.
   Reportedly, this had been the subject of an internal dispute within the
   government.

   On January 26, 2007, the government confirmed that 26 proposals for
   unitary authorities had been received. Various county councils have
   proposed they should become unitary authorities : these being
   Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Durham, North Yorkshire,
   Northumberland, Shropshire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Districts seeking
   to become unitary authorities on their own are Bedford, Exeter,
   Ipswich, Lancaster, Oxford, Preston. Pendle and Burnley have proposed
   merging as a unitary authority.

   On March 27, 2007, the government announced that the proposals by
   Bedfordshire, Bedford, Cornwall, Cheshire, Cumbria, Durham, Exeter,
   Ipswich, North Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, Norwich, Shropshire,
   Somerset and Wiltshire to become unitary authorities would go into the
   next phase, as would the proposal of Chester for a two-unitary
   authority Cheshire and by the districts of Northumberland for a
   two-unitary Northumberland.

Directory

   See Subdivisions of England for list of English local authority areas.
   Principal areas of Wales

   Subdivisions created by the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994
   Anglesey • Blaenau Gwent • Bridgend • Caerphilly • Cardiff •
   Carmarthenshire • Ceredigion • Conwy • Denbighshire • Flintshire •
   Gwynedd • Merthyr Tydfil • Monmouthshire • Neath Port Talbot • Newport
   • Pembrokeshire • Powys • Rhondda Cynon Taff • Swansea • Torfaen • Vale
   of Glamorgan • Wrexham

   Districts of Northern Ireland
   Northern Ireland

   Subdivisions created by the Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern
   Ireland) 1971

   Antrim • Ards • Armagh • Ballymena • Ballymoney • Banbridge • Belfast •
   Carrickfergus • Castlereagh • Coleraine • Cookstown • Craigavon • Derry
   • Down • Dungannon and South Tyrone • Fermanagh • Larne • Limavady •
   Lisburn • Magherafelt • Moyle • Newry and Mourne • Newtownabbey •
   North Down • Omagh • Strabane
   Council areas of Scotland

   Aberdeen · Aberdeenshire · Angus · Argyll and Bute · Clackmannanshire ·
   Dumfries and Galloway · Dundee · East Ayrshire · East Dunbartonshire ·
   East Lothian · East Renfrewshire · Edinburgh · Falkirk · Fife ·
   Glasgow · Highland · Inverclyde · Midlothian · Moray · Na h-Eileanan
   Siar (Western Isles) · North Ayrshire · North Lanarkshire · Orkney ·
   Perth and Kinross · Renfrewshire · Scottish Borders · Shetland · South
   Ayrshire · South Lanarkshire · Stirling · West Dunbartonshire · West
   Lothian
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