Lesson video

Hello, welcome to our lesson today.

My name is Mr. Miskell and I'll be your Citizenship teacher for today's lesson.

Today's lesson is an exciting one, and it is on the topic of how is local democracy different to national government? Is lesson one of six.

And before we go into talking about what our lesson is today and what the overall unit of work is, I just want to make sure that you've got a few things sorted.

Now firstly, you need to make sure that you've got a pen or pencil by your side.

You need to make sure that you've got a sheet of paper so that you can take part in our activities that we're going to do together.

And also that you can jot down any notes that you may well need.

And lastly, you need to make sure that you are in a quiet space so that you can participate in our lesson today without any distraction.

Now, once you have sorted all those things you are ready to get set with our learning and we can join our lesson together.

So, today's lesson is part of an overall unit of work.

And the overall unit of work is about where does power reside in the UK? That means where does power rest in the UK.

And we're on lesson one and lesson one is, how is local democracy different to national governments.

We then go on to lesson two which is about how does devolved government operate in the UK.

Lesson three looks at how is local government structured? Lesson four addresses the question of what do local councils do? Lesson five looks at how do elections work? And lesson six is about what role do NGOs charities, and civil society play in local communities? Okay, let's get going with our first lesson today which is about how is local democracy different to national government? Now, in order to be able to answer that question about how is local democracy different to national government, we have to go through a few different stages.

And this is our agenda for what we're going to be doing together today in our lesson.

Firstly, we are going to look and try and address the question about how power is distributed in the UK? So where is his power centred in the UK? And then that's going to lead us into a question about what does a government actually mean? Once we've kind of defined what we mean by government we are going to then compare local and central government.

That's then going to lead us into a short response exam question practise or a little bit of a exam question practise that we're going to do together.

And lastly, we are going to move into a bit of a case study about COVID-19 and the local and central government response to COVID-19.

Now.

The first thing that we're going to do together is we are going to have a little look at where power is distributed in the UK? And there's a wonderful tree here, and the wonderful tree here shows us about the different kind of spaces and different places where power is distributed in the United Kingdom in our country.

And we can say, can't we? That each one of those punches represents a different section of where power is kind of distributed, where it's where it's whether it actually is located into the United Kingdom.

And we can say, can't we? that actually nationally, power is located in the UK Parliament, but we can also say that it is also located in places like, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, or the National Assembly of Wales as well.

So we can see nationally that's where power is located, But we can also say that power is located regionally at different levels as well.

And we can say that if you live in London then the Mayor of London is an example of regional governments where power is devolved.

and by devoled I mean, given over to so that it's closer to the people.

Now around the Mayor of London is the Greater London Authority as well as the London Assembly.

And nowadays we can also add other branches from that regional arm for example, through city region mayors as well.

Like for example, the greater Manchester City region.

Now what we're going through looking at today together really is about local government.

And we can see that local government is divided into two particular branches there to show us today.

And we can say that actually local government can be described as either County Council level.

So we can say that, Lancaster for example has a County Council, but we can also say that there are unitary authorities as well.

And the unitary authority is where a local council runs all the services itself.

And you've also got perhaps District Councils as well that might come underneath County Councils.

So for example, you might have Lancaster County Council that runs many services, but you might also have a District Council under that that provides those different services.

And today we're going to be talking about those services that are delivered by Local Councils.

We can also say can't we, that actually local government can be described and can be quite complex because the many different layers of it, you could say that there were London Boroughs there were Metropolitan Borough Councils, there were Town Councils in some areas.

And there were also Parish Councils under those in some areas as well.

That's what we mean by local government.

And today we're going to be focusing in on how power is distributed in the UK and particularly, we're going to be looking at that branch of the tree that's about local government.

Now in order for us to really understand what we mean about local governments and government in general, we have to really define what does government actually mean.

Now, when we're talking about this, we are saying that government is the means by which a group of people organise themselves and divide up authority and power in order to achieve goals.

We call these goals policies, and they usually seek to improve life for groups of citizens, which are people in a society often by running services.

Now, I'd like you to use the opportunity to perhaps pause the lesson now and have another look at the definition of what does government mean, because actually we're going to be using that definition in a few seconds in order to be able to answer a set of questions related to it as well.

So you might want to use the opportunity now to pause the lesson and have another look of what we mean by government Now, using that information that we've just gone through together.

I'd like you to really think about what does government actually do? And I'd like you to write a list of goals and goals are policies that governments may have to achieve in order to improve life for groups of people.

And you may like to think about different groups of people so young people, older people, and the environment.

So what policies or goals might the government want to achieve for those three groups of people? For example, young people, older people and the environment.

Remember that goal is another way of saying a policy.

So now is the time to pause our lesson and have a go at writing down an answer to this particular task.

Good luck.

Now well done there for giving that task a really good go.

And I'd like to give you a little bit of feedback about what students in my lessons often tell me when confronted with a task like this.

Now we know that governments often have goals about how they can improve life for people.

We call these goals policies, and often these policies are achieved through running services like the National Health Service, the NHS nationally across the United Kingdom.

Now goals or policies might include these.

Now these are some good examples of often shared with me by students in my class when asking these questions, It might be about keeping the population healthy.

It might be about ensuring that the population is safe and protected.

Or to make sure that young people are educated.

And lastly, to the environment by improving recycling.

Now your answer may well be different to that and that is absolutely fine as long as it is a goal, a policy, an idea that the government may have to improve the life for citizens in our country.

Now, we've thought about what we mean by policies and goals and we've thought about what government actually means.

We've really got to divide that idea of into government into kind of different sections.

And we said, when we talked about the distribution of power in our country, we said that we had kind of power that's distributed nationally, we said regionally as well, but we also said locally.

And today we're going to be focusing in on local.

But what I want us to do, is I want us to consider what really is the difference between local and central government.

Now, in order to do that, I'd like to draw your attention to this table here, because we're going to be comparing local and central government.

Now this table is included as part of the worksheet that is attached to this lesson.

So you may well want to have a little look at that worksheet in order to fill it out directly from there.

Alternatively, you might want to pause our lesson now in order to create your own worksheets on a sheet of paper by creating and making this table.

So you can simply draw it up yourself.

Now across the top, you've got local and central government and you can see that actually what we're going to be doing is we're going to be trying to analyse local and central government, according to the geographical areas that they cover, the roles that they carry out.

And also, and importantly, who are the decision-makers in local government? And who are the decision-makers in central government as well? So now's a good time to pause our lesson and take an opportunity to jot down this table so that you can use it for our next task as well.

So the first thing that I would like you to look at that you can add to your table is about the geographical area.

Because we know that the local government, it has powers in a local area like a town, a city or a county whereas the central government, it holds power over the whole of the United Kingdom on many issues.

So that's the difference between local government and central government when it comes to the geographical area.

Now remember, you can pause our lesson now and you can add this to your table.

But I'd like to take us one step forward and I'd like us to consider the roles of central government and local government.

Now, in terms of the role of local government then councils apply laws that are set by central government through parliament, and local government decides how local services are run, whereas central government is responsible for the security and welfare of the whole country.

And it sets laws and policies that apply to every one of us.

Now I'll just make this bigger on your screen so that you can pause our lesson now and you can add this information to your own table as well.

But I'd like to take us one step further and I'd like us to consider the last thing that I'd like you to compare about local and central government and that's about the decision-makers.

Who is it that actually makes decisions in local and central government? So, in local government councillors are elected by local residents and they make decisions following laws that are set by parliament.

And whereas central government decisions are made by government ministers who are either MPS, so members of parliament, or Lords from the House of Lords and run government departments.

Now the two pictures that you can see on screen there firstly on the local government is a picture of the debating chamber in one local council, which is Sheffield City Council.

And you can see that the space for 84 councillors in that debating chamber, where they make decisions about what happens in that particular city.

Whereas you can see under the central government it is the cabinet table.

And around that cabinet table are government ministers who meet once a week in 10 Downing Street to make decisions about how the country is run.

And at the centre of the cabinets and who chairs it is the prime minister that.

So now is a good time to pause our lesson and jot down about who makes decisions in local government, but also in central government as well.

So well done for carrying out that task there, and you should now have a table that looks something like this.

So in terms of geographical area we would say that local government has powers in a local area like a town, city or county where the central government holds power over the whole of United Kingdom on many issues.

In terms of roles that they both carry out, we'd say that councils supplied laws that are set by central government through parliament.

Local government decides how local services are run.

Central government on the other hand is responsible for the security and welfare of the whole country, and it sets laws and policies that apply to us all.

In terms of the decision-makers, we would say that local government has councillors who are elected by local residents and they make decisions and follow laws that are set by parliament.

Whereas central government, in terms of decision-makers decisions are made by government ministers who are MPS or Lords and run government departments.

So I'll make this full screen now, so that you can pause our lesson and that you can add these to your own table if you don't have those down at the moment.

Now using that information, I would like us to do a little bit of a quiz and I'd like you to shout out the answer to me.

And we're going to be looking at deciding whether this applies to central or local government.

You've got two options obviously, you've got option one, which is central government and option two, which is a local government.

So firstly, is this central or local government? It has powers in a local area like a town, city or county.

Like to shout-out now is this central government? Or is it local government? Now, hopefully you are saying that it is actually local government.

And it's local government because actually central government holds power over the whole of the United Kingdom on many issues.

When we know actually, that local government has powers in a local area like a town, city or county.

Okay.

Let's take to the next question on our quiz.

And the next question on our quiz is that decisions are made by cabinet ministers, is it central government or is it local government? I'd like to hear you shout out your answer now.

Central government or local government? And of course the answer to that is that it is central government.

And the reason it's central government is that well local government has decisions that are taken by local councillors where central government has decisions that are made by government ministers.

So well done for participating there in that quiz, just to kind of bring together our learning about the differences between local government and central government.

Now, what I'd like you to do is I'd like to focus in on a little bit of exam practise, and I'd like do to an exam question practise on the role of central and local government.

And this is a two mark and question and in fact is two, two mark questions.

And the first one is explain one role performed by local government? And the second one is explain one role performed by central government? Now, in order to do this, remember that each one is two marks.

So you're going to have to explain that one role, so you're going to have to state it and then you're going to have to explain it a little bit.

You're going to have to offer a little bit of an explanation in order to get those two marks.

So I'd like you to pause the lesson now, I'd like you to get your piece of paper and try and jot down an answer to these two, two mark questions there about the roles that are performed by local governments and also the roles that performed by central government.

Good luck with this.

So well done for giving that answer a really good try.

They're very difficult questions, but they're things that are covered in our lesson before this particular task.

Now, when I ask students in my lesson, in my class an answer, a question like this they often tell me, in response to one role performed by local government.

They say the councils apply laws set by central government through parliament.

They do this by providing local services and deciding how they are run.

You can see that, can't you? Then actually you're stating something and then you're explaining it as well.

So that's why you get those two marks.

In response to the second question, which was explain one role performed by central government.

Then answers that students often give me are ones like this.

Central government sets laws and policies that apply to all of us.

An example of this is their role in being responsible for the security and welfare of the whole country.

So again, you can see, can't you? That's it's stating an answer and then it's explaining it that doesn't just give you one mark, the explanation gives you two marks there.

So that's really important something that's really crucial if we're to maximise our marks in the actual exam.

Now I'll make this full screen now so that you can pause our lesson and you can add to your answer and upgrade it and make it even better if you would like.

Now, well done for having a go at that particular exam question practise.

And I'd like to take you to using that knowledge a little bit more deeply and I'd like you to consider a case study.

And this is really a case study about the different roles of local and central government in response to COVID 19.

So in response to that global pandemic that has been facing very many people around the world.

Now in order to do that, I'm going to firstly focus on COVID-19 and central government.

And you can say that they see that the UK government has been led by Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

And he's been very busy during that COVID 19 pandemic.

He there is leading a press briefing one of those televised addresses to the nation, answering questions that you may well have seen on your TV screens at home.

Now, the sorts of things that central government had been doing in response to COVID-19.

Coordinating the NHS, the National Health Service because the UK government has created new Nightingale Hospitals.

It's been setting up the rules or setting the rules for lockdowns and laws were set by parliament to make sure that people stayed at home and didn't spread that virus.

And it's also been dealing with the economy because many workers were furloughed and the income's protected.

That means that they didn't go to work but they were still paid an amount of money by the government so that they could feed their families, so that they could continue to buy things, even though their employer perhaps couldn't afford to pay them.

And also, you will know about this quite well as students.

The government, central government has been involved in education in the pandemic, in schools of course were advised about how to educate students online during COVID 19.

Now I'll make this a little bit bigger on your screen so that you can focus in on it in much more detail.

But I'd like you to use that information in order to answer some questions.

And the first question I have for you is this, you're going to use the case study to help explain the different responses to COVID-19 from both central and local government.

So question number one, is to give an example of the work carried out by central government in response to COVID 19.

And I'll make this much bigger on your screen now so that you can pause our lesson and you can have a go at answering this particular question now.

So well done, there for having a go at answering that particular question.

And now I'd like you to focus on the second part of our case study which is actually about COVID-19 and local government.

And of course many local councils have been busy supporting food banks during the COVID-19 pandemic to make sure that residents don't go hungry during lockdown.

And these are the sorts of things that local government has been up to.

Well, many local councils have set up helplines to support local communities.

They have been supporting food banks and some local councils have used funding to help support food banks.

They've been helping local care homes because many elderly people were very vulnerable during the pandemic and many were supported financially by councils at least those care homes were.

And also the local councils, local government have been encouraging cycling because with public transport limited because of social distancing, many local councils have encouraged cycling by having and creating cycle lanes across towns, cities, and counties.

Now I'll make this much bigger now so that you can pause our lesson and you can look at it in much more detail as well, and that will help you with the next task that we're going to do together.

And the next task is our second task in this particular case study.

And it is really about using the information of my case study to look at the role of local government in the pandemic.

And I'd like you to explain one example of the work carried out by local governments to support residents during COVID-19.

Now of course, again, I'll make this full screen so that you can pause our lesson and you can jot down an answer to this particular question.

Good luck with it.

Now well done there for giving both of those questions your best go.

And I'd like to share with you some answers that students in my class would often share with me in response to these particular questions.

So in response to question one, which was give an example of the work carried out by central commitment response to COVID-19.

Well, they would say that central government proposes, proposed new laws created by parliament, to make sure that people stayed at home during the pandemic.

And in response to the second question, students would often share an answer, it was something like this.

And of course, the second question was, explain one example of the work carried out by local government to support residents during COVID-19.

They would say things like this, the local councils have helped support cycling by creating additional space for cycling on roads.

This is because public transport has been limited due to social distancing.

I'll make this full screen.

So of course you can pause our lesson now and you can add to your answer, you can upgrade your answer and make it even stronger as well.

Now today in our lesson we have covered a variety of different things.

We have firstly looked at the distribution of power in the UK, and we've looked at how power is distributed, how it is shared across the United Kingdom both nationally, regionally and locally.

And we focused on locally haven't we really?.

And we've looked at how does, what does government actually mean? And then we've used that knowledge of what government actually means to compare local and central government.

That then led us into a short response exam question practise.

And I shared with you a model answer for that.

And lastly, we looked to the case study to bring of all of our learning together.

And that case study was about COVID-19 and the local and central government response to COVID-19 there.

Now I hope that you have enjoyed our lesson today.

Now, if you'd like to please ask your parents or carers to share your work on Twitter by tagging Oak National and using the hashtag LearnwithOak.

The material from today's lesson has been provided from the Association for Citizenship Teaching.

Now, before you finish our lesson today I'd like to remind you that there's an exit quiz to do so please do complete that exit quiz now.

So thanks very much for participating in our lesson today, it's been an absolute pleasure to be your Citizenship teacher.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.