More ImagesUnitary authorities of England
Type of local government body responsible for all functions of local government in England
In England, a unitary authority or unitary council is 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. The district that is governed by a unitary authority is commonly referred to as a unitary authority area or unitary area. The terms unitary district and, for those which are coterminous with a county, unitary county are also sometimes used. The term unitary authority is also sometimes used to refer to the area governed, such as in the ISO 3166-2:GB standard defining a taxonomy for subdivisions of the UK, and in colloquial usage. 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. Wikipedia