Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Harris, and I'm going to be guiding you through our lesson today.

I'm really, really happy to see you here, to be learning alongside me.

Today's lesson is called, "How is Local Government Different from Central Government?" And it's in a series of lessons all about how does local democracy work.

By the end of this lesson, we're going to be able to say, "I can explain some of the key differences between local and central government." Now, some of this learning might be completely brand new to you and some of it might be quite challenging, but my role is to help and support and guide you through it, and I'm really excited to be here to do that.

Here are the keywords that are going to come up throughout this lesson.

I'm going to say the word and you can repeat it out loud.

Government.

Authority.

Policies.

And democracy.

So let's start with our first learning cycle then.

What is central government? Let's start by thinking about the word govern.

Now, you'll come across things being governed in all different areas of your life.

For example, you might be in some clubs which are governed.

You might be in a school that is governed.

You might be watching sports and being a fan of that, and that will be governed.

And to govern just basically means to manage or to control something.

So schools are governed, clubs are governed and managed, and sports teams are governed and managed, and all the different leagues as well.

So if that team is within a league, that league will be governed, which means it's controlled or managed.

Now, when we're talking about a country being governed, that means how the country is run and its rules and its policies and its laws, and how all of that comes together.

A government is the group of people who have been given that authority.

They've been given the right to be able to rule that country, to make its decisions, to make laws, and to make rules.

And not only that, but to put things in place to be able to improve life for people living within that country and within the different societies.

The type of government in the UK is a democracy.

Now, one of the key things about a democracy is that the citizens, that's the people who live there, have the right to choose who they want to govern their country.

How this is decided is done by elections.

That means that the citizens get to vote for who they want to see govern in their country.

Once these people are chosen, they're put together and a government is formed.

And the person who's in charge of this government, you might have heard this before, is the prime minister.

That's basically the big boss.

Now, once the government is made, that's not the end of the story because the government is accountable to the public.

Now, accountable means taking responsibility for your actions.

It's about being reliable and trustworthy, and it means accepting the consequences.

So if you make a bad decision for the country, you have to take the consequences of that.

And if you make a good decision for the country, you can accept the positive consequences for that.

So being accountable means that the public have the right to hold you responsible for the decisions that you make for them.

The government needs to follow democratic principles, which include protecting individual rights.

That means people being able to live and to say and to work how they want to as long as they don't hurt others, and protecting their rights and making sure that they are safe living within that country.

It's important to allow them freedom of speech.

So in this country, in a democracy, you have the right to say what you like.

That doesn't mean that can't come with consequences.

So there can be good and bad consequences again, but you are allowed to speak what you would like to speak.

And also it's important for a government to make sure that everybody has a voice in saying how they want the country to be run.

So let's have a quick check for understanding, shall we? So if this is the definition, what's the word? The country's leaders are elected by the citizens in free and fair elections.

Country's leaders are elected by the citizens in free and fair elections.

What's the word that goes with that definition? You ready for the reveal? There we go.

It's a democracy.

Did you get that? Fantastic.

Remember a democracy, one of the key things about a democracy is that the citizens, the people who live there, get to choose their leaders.

They have the right to choose who they want to govern their country.

Now that we understand the word govern and government, let's start talking about central government then.

So if you've got something at the centre, it means it's in the middle, doesn't it? And central government is exactly that.

It's in the middle.

It's at the centre of the laws and decision-making and the policies that happen all around the UK.

You might sometimes have heard it be called national government.

Government will make rules and laws and policies to cover the country that they run.

Now, a policy is actions or goals, ideas that a government wants to carry out or has already carried out.

The responsibility of central government is about making policies, rules, and laws that concern the whole of the UK.

So anything that they decide to put into place, any of their policies, that is for the whole of the state of the UK.

Another quick check for understanding then.

So fill in the missing word.

It is called central government because it is at the hmm of coordinating and managing the UK as a whole.

It is called central government because it is at the hmm of coordinating and managing the UK as a whole.

What's that missing word? Let's reveal the answer.

It's called central government because it is at the centre of coordinating and managing the UK as a whole.

Well done.

Central government is made up of so many different parts and it's not just one office or one small group of people.

It's made up of hundreds and hundreds of people across the whole of central government.

Some of these parts are Parliament, and there's a Cabinet, and there's also lots of government departments and agencies as well.

For example, there's a government department which is concerned with education, and there's a government department which is concerned with healthcare.

And then you'll have another one for immigration.

That's people who want to move to the UK.

And there's so many different kinds and all of these work together.

Now remember in charge of the whole of the government, sort of the big boss, is the prime minister and they're responsible for choosing that government.

So they are the most accountable, the most responsible for the decisions across the whole of the UK.

Let's look at Parliament then.

So Parliament looks at what the government is doing, decides if it's doing a good job, if it's doing enough for the citizens or not enough.

It debates the issues and passing of new laws.

So if somebody has an idea for a new law, Parliament will sit down and think, is that a good idea? Is that not a good idea? Can it be changed? Can it be improved? Parliament also sets taxes.

That's money that comes into the government so that government can provide services like, for example, education and healthcare.

And the money that taxes are pays for those services.

Parliament's job is to represent the citizens of the UK.

So that's us, the people who've live here.

And it's got three parts.

These parts are the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the Monarchy.

Quick check for understanding then.

So the three parts of Parliaments are the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the.

So the three parts of Parliament are the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the.

Ready for the reveal? The three parts of Parliament are the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarchy.

That's right.

So let's look more closely at the House of Commons then.

So this might be something that you've seen on TV or in newspapers and it's made up of 650 members of Parliament.

So members of Parliament are the people who are voted for by citizens.

They're there to represent people in an area.

So if you live in Blackburn, you will have an MP who people have voted for to represent you in your area in the House of Commons and in the government.

And everywhere around the UK has MPs to do this.

And they are there to help make laws and to make decisions to make life in the UK better for the people who live here.

The House of Commons is known as the Lower House of Parliament and the place that it meets is in the Palace of Westminster in London.

And you can see here on the screen is an image of the House of Commons.

So there's people sitting all the way around that room and in that middle bit there where you can see the table, that's where the prime minister will sit and his or her closest advisors will sit close to them there.

And that's where they'll have their debates, they'll talk about things, they'll argue, and they make lots of the decisions about the laws and policies and issues for the UK.

The House of Lords is a bit different to the House of Commons.

So in the House of Commons, you've got people who've been voted for to be there to represent the people of the UK.

The House of Lords is different in that the people there are chosen to be in the House of Lords.

So it's not that they've been voted in, they're usually chosen for their knowledge.

So maybe they've got a specialist knowledge in one part of UK policies.

So maybe the environment or maybe scientific information or it could be health knowledge.

And they are then chosen and given a place in House of Lords to help the government run.

They help and they check and improve laws.

So once the House of Commons have decided on something, it goes to House of Lords and they will look at it very, very carefully to see if any changes need to be made to improve it.

And then they can approve it, give it the thumbs up, or give it a thumbs down if they think it can't go through.

Now, the House of Commons was called the Lower House of Parliament.

This is called Upper House of Parliament.

It also meets in the Palace of Westminster as well.

And there on the screen, you can see House of Lords.

Similar setup, isn't it, with the chairs all around the edges and that central table in the middle.

The Monarchy is the third part of Parliament.

So remember we've had the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and we've got the Monarch.

The Monarch is the king or the queen of the UK.

At the moment, we have a king, don't we? We've got King Charles, and previously before him was Queen Elizabeth.

Now, the Monarch doesn't actually really have the authority, that's the right to be able to govern and to make laws in the UK, but they do have very special duties to perform.

So for example, they have regular meetings with the prime minister.

They'll meet with Parliament every year, and they will sign important laws.

That doesn't mean they can stop them and it doesn't mean that they can make them themselves, but they do have to sign off on them to make them official.

The Cabinet is another part of the government and that's made up of MPs who are the heads of their department.

So do you remember the MPs, the Members of Parliament who sit in the House of Commons, or the people who've been chosen to sit on the government, on the Cabinet are usually the people who have got the most experience with health or they've got experience with education and they run those government departments.

They're chosen by the prime minister.

All right, so they're not voted into those positions.

The prime minister will choose who he or she wants to be on their Cabinet.

And the Cabinet is a really important part of government because it makes the decisions, creates the policies, and makes the plans for the whole of the future of the UK.

Now, that has weekly meetings at Whitehall in London and there you can see Whitehall on the screen.

You might recognise this building because it's a really prominent, a really important building for lots of different UK events.

A quick check for understanding again then.

So which part of Parliament does this picture represent? So have a good look at it.

Which part of Parliament does this picture represent? Is it A, the House of Commons? B, the House of Lords? Or C, the Monarch? So the part of Parliament that this picture represents is the House of Commons.

There's the central table.

Remember the prime minister sits around there with his or her closest advisors.

Now as I've already said, central government in the UK is responsible for policies across the whole of the UK.

And so that means that the government is responsible for making sure that the needs of all of the UK are met.

For example, the government looks after the UK economy.

Now, the economy is how money is made and how money is spent.

So for example, people make money through jobs, through businesses, through buying and selling things to other countries or to other people.

And it's about taxes and basically what the government and the country and the people within it do with their money.

When the economy is doing well, that means people have jobs and they have money to spend.

And when the economy isn't doing so well, that can mean the opposite.

So you can have people who are losing jobs, which means they've got less money to spend and businesses struggle, and it's a big circle where everything is all connected together, and the central government really has responsibility for building the economy and making sure that people have the money and the lifestyle to be able to live a good and healthy life.

Central government also develops policies on issues like education.

So looking at schools and deciding what's going to be taught in schools, like what has to be taught by law and what should be taught, but maybe isn't a law.

It's also in charge of things like health, so determining how many hospitals we're going to have, how GPs are going to be run, how dentists are going to be run.

And also defence as well, so that's talking about our navy, our armies, our RAFs, that's the air force, and how we are linked to wars and conflicts going around the world.

So our central government will decide whether we need to send our armies to support conflicts and wars around the world.

But also if our country was ever involved in a war like it has been in the past, they would make the decisions about our military there.

Another important job of central government is that they decide on what money and how much money is given to local governments.

And we'll come back to that very shortly.

Central government also devolves some decisions to regional governments.

Now, to devolve basically means to transfer some of your power and give it to somebody else.

So if I was going to devolve power to another adult, I'd say, "Hey, you take responsibility for that." And that's the same in devolved governments.

Central government says, "Okay, you can take these decisions and you can make laws and policies around that." So that's what it is, giving somebody else the responsibility for decisions and policies.

And so some of the areas that are devolved include health.

So again, healthcare, medical care.

Education, so schools.

Also things like transport as well, so your trains and your buses, and all of those services that people use to get around.

And if you look at our chart here, we've got the central governments and then you've got the branch off coming to regional governments.

Some of you might have heard of some of these.

So with Wales, they have the Welsh Parliament.

In Northern Ireland, there's the Northern Ireland Assembly.

And in Scotland, there's a Scottish Parliament.

So the Welsh Parliament, the Northern Island Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament will take on the responsibility for things like health and education and transport.

For example, in Northern Ireland, they have a completely different health and social care system to the rest of the UK.

So if you live in England, you'll have the NHS which looks after health needs.

And then you'll have the social services side of things and the social care which will look after, for example, older people who need to move out of their own houses and move into care homes.

They're two different systems. Whereas in Northern Ireland, that is one joint system and that is totally unique to Northern Ireland.

They do it totally differently.

And that's because of their devolved government taking on that responsibility to make those decisions.

So let's check our understanding then.

So which areas does central government have authority on? Which areas does central government have authority on? Is it economy, education, or defence? Are you ready? That's right, all of them.

So central government authority on economy, that's the money and how it's spent.

Education and defence, that's absolutely right.

Now as we've already mentioned, policies are the ideas or the goals that a government has which they want to put into action.

And they're created by thinking about, what does this country need? What do we need to move forward? What do we need to improve lives for people in the country? And then there's a lot of discussion about, well, how can we make this better? What can we do? And then they have to put those plans into action.

So it's not just a quick snap decision, it's got a lot of discussion and thoughts and consideration about how can we make things better.

In 2022, there was a Cost of Living Support policy made.

So people were realising that the cost of everything was going up.

So food bills were going up, energy bills, so that's heating and your gas usage and your water bills, everything was going up, transport costs were going up, petrol was going up, and people were finding that the money they were making from their jobs wasn't covering these bills.

They didn't have enough money to cover the bills anymore.

And so this Cost of Living Support was a policy to try and help households deal with the cost of things going up.

So every household got help with their energy bills, so pay for their heating costs.

There was also extra help for families on particularly low incomes where they got extra money given to them as well.

In 2021, there was a Net Zero Strategy.

So this is talking about our environment and protecting our environment by reducing carbon emissions, so things like vehicles when they kick out the smoke at the back of a car, all of that creates vehicle emissions.

And this policy is aimed to try and reduce that down to have no carbon being used and no carbon emissions by 2050.

Which policy is being described here? This policy aims to help households cope with costs like energy bills.

This policy aims to help households cope with costs like energy bills.

Is that Cost of Living Support, Net Zero Strategy, or is it education policy? Let's find the answer then.

So this policy aims to help households cope with costs like energy bills.

It's the Cost of Living Support.

That's right.

So remember that was for rising costs that people were finding their wages were not covering their bills anymore and the Cost of Living Support was to try and help and ease that burden, ease that stress for families in affording basic things like energy bills and water bills.

Let's move on to a task then.

So your task now is to write one short paragraph about central government and how it works.

You might want to include information on how central government is structured.

So what are the parts of central government, remember Parliament, Cabinet, all of those.

And then also what areas does central government have authority over? So what are they in charge of? Who do their policies affect, for example? The second part is to write a list of goals for a policy either about community or about health a central government might use to help improve life in the UK.

So think about the community and think about what goals would improve life and what might central government want to do there.

And the same with health.

And make a list of those goals.

So choose community or health for that.

Let's look at what your answers could have been then for writing a short paragraph about central government and how it works.

Your answer might have looked like this.

Central government has the authority to make decisions for the whole of the UK.

It has authority over areas like education, health, defence, and the economy.

It also makes laws in Parliament, and Parliament is made up of the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the Monarch.

Did you get many of those things? Did you mention authority? Did you mention the structure of it? For example, Parliament and House of Commons.

You might have brought in something to do with the Cabinet or to talk about the roles of the House of Commons and all of that is really great if you did that, well done.

Let's see what you had then for writing goals for a policy.

Did you choose community or did you choose health? So if you chose community, you might have included something like increasing the amount of youth clubs in the area.

That's what I would choose for my area definitely.

And then also having more training for specialist or youth workers, so people who actually know what they're doing in running these kind of clubs.

I'd also want to see some consultations, so some discussions with local residents to say what do you want to see in the area? And that's what I would want central government to be able to do for my area.

If you chose health, you might have had some answers like this.

So for example, every citizen having access to a GP in their area so they're not having to wait on big long waiting lists or have to go out of their area to find a doctor.

You might have wanted to think about things like advertising ways to keep away illnesses and diseases.

So putting up information posters of how to stop things spreading.

You might have put down to train more nurses, doctors, dentists, all of the people that are involved in medical care for people in the country.

Because if we've got more people like that, more doctors, more nurses, people don't have to wait so long for appointments, and that might be something that you would put in your policies for central government.

Really well done on that.

That is a tricky task.

And if you've come up with some of those policies, that is fantastic.

Great job.

Let's move on to talking about local government then.

So we've covered central government and we've covered regional governments, so that's the Welsh and the Scottish and the Northern Irish branches, so where some powers are devolved to them, so it's transferred over to them.

But now we're gonna really focus in on local governments.

So in additional to central, we've got local governments.

And here we go, so we've got central government there and branches off to regional governments.

But each of these, so the central government and the Welsh Parliament, Northern Island Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament are also all linked to local governments.

A local government is very similar to central government because it's a group of elected people who make decisions, but instead of making the decisions about the whole of the UK, they're making decisions about smaller areas like towns and cities.

Local governments manage all the services in that local area and they make policies about things that affect everyday life for people living in that area.

So again, rather than it being the whole of the UK, they'll be concentrating on a town or a city or a series of towns within a larger area.

Policies that get made by local government are put in place just in that area, not nationally like it would be with central governments.

Most of the time, you'll hear local government being referred to as councils.

So for example, we've got the City of York Council, Fife Council, Gloucestershire County Council, and Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council.

They're all known as councils, but they are in fact a local government.

So which of these images do you think best represents the authority that a local government has? So think about the area that they are in charge of.

So picture A shows whole of the UK, picture B shows a small section of the UK, and picture C shows the whole of the world.

So which of these images best represents the authority that a local government has? Let's reveal the answer.

It is A, a local government is in charge of a smaller area.

It has authority over just a smaller area of the UK.

Leaders of the local government are called councillors.

Okay, and they are voted in just the same as MPs are, so the people who are in Parliament and central government.

Councillors are voted in by the people that live in their area.

And so that makes it their job to represent and to stand up for and speak out for the people who live in their local area.

Councillors don't just work on their own.

Just like in central government where there's teams of lots of different people supporting the government and making that up, that's exactly what it is in local government.

So councillors have got people who've got really specialist knowledge of the things that they might have to deal with.

So if you've got somebody who is really specialist, knowing about environment, they might be something called a council officer and their job is to advise that councillor to make really good decisions about the environment.

So some of the different areas that a local government does have authority over is things like social care.

So that's the care of older people, people who might need extra care, people who don't live in their homes, so look after children, will all come under social care.

They also have authority over things like housing.

So if people don't rent a house from somebody privately, so where they can't find a house themselves, they can often ask the council to say, "I can't find a place to live, I need support with this." And the council, the local government, they work with those people to find them housing.

And also things like parks, they're really important, aren't they, for entertainment space and to have somewhere to go, and it's your local government that is in charge and has the authority over those parks.

They'll also be in charge of things like putting playgrounds in place or maybe putting the all-weather pitches in as well.

So it has a really big responsibility, the local government to local people.

It also has responsibility for transport, so your buses.

Local councils are the ones who work with the bus companies to make the timetables and work out which areas need more services and where maybe they've got too many services and they're not needed.

It's also things like waste collection.

So when you empty your bins and you put it into your big bin and then that just disappears off into the back of the lorries, where does that go? Well, all those decisions are made by the local government.

Local government also has authority over schools.

Now, this is a bit different to central government because while central government will decide what is taught on the curriculum and what has to be taught by law, local government doesn't have that authority.

They can't make those decisions, but they are responsible in making sure that children who are living in an area have a school place.

They need to be responsible for making sure that children with special educational needs are getting the support that they need.

They're also in charge of things like making sure there are enough teachers and making sure there's enough teaching assistants and all of the things help schools run from day to day falls under the local government authority.

So let's have a look at this check for understanding question then.

So which of these areas does local government not work with? So which one does it not work with? We've got housing, schools, defence and security, or parks and open spaces? Which one does it not work with? Let's have a check then.

It is defence and security.

Yeah, that's a central government responsibility, isn't it? Whereas housing, schools, and parks and open spaces falls to local governments.

In the same way that central government has to make sure that the policies and the rules and the laws that they're making are good for the UK as a whole, well local governments have the same responsibilities, but they need to make sure that whatever policies and ideas they have, it has to be for the good of the people that live in those communities that they are serving.

And what works in one area might not work in another.

Any decisions that they make have to follow the law.

So they can't just decide they're gonna do something completely different from what the law says.

They have to follow the law and whatever policies and decisions that they make.

They can't make their own laws.

So Jacob here, he says, "My local area needs good public transport.

I live in a city and most people use the trains or buses to go to work or to school.

My local government added extra buses in the mornings to help people who start work very early.

It's really helped my Mum." So one of the priorities there for Jacob is having good public transport.

That might not be the same in some areas because maybe there's some areas where most people will drive to work or they'll drive to school or people walk more often to the places that they spend time at like school or work or hobbies.

But for Jacob, it's public transport that is really important.

What does Sam say? Well, let's see.

"In my village, there isn't a library, but we don't miss out.

Our local government arranged a mobile library van which visits regularly.

It runs an after-school session for older pupils and a story club for younger children, just like in a city library." So for them, they don't have that building, they don't have that place that you can actually walk to or drive to or get to easily.

But they're not missing out because their local government has said, what does this community need? And they've made that there.

They've provided that library.

That is what people have needed.

If you think about Jacob on the other slide, he lives in a city.

So having things like a library is probably just very easy for him to access.

Lots of cities have libraries, lots of towns have libraries, but for some who lives in a village, it's not the case.

So local government have been really careful to think about what is going to really help the residents who live there.

These three types of government, so we've talked about central government, we've talked about the regional government, and we've talked about local government.

All of these have got different roles and responsibilities.

They all have authority over different areas of managing communities.

So as we've said, central government is whole of the UK, regional government is smaller areas, things like Wales and Northern Ireland and Scotland, and then you've got local government, which is much more concentrated, much more in detail of a town, city, or a county.

Well, the key thing is between these three types of government is that they all work together.

It's absolutely imperative, so important that they work together as a team because only by working as a team and only by listening to each other will the residents, that's the people who live in that area, it's the only way that they're gonna get their needs met and see the services that they need that they're provided for them.

Let's check your understanding then.

So each type of government has got different roles and responsibilities, but they all work together to meet the needs of citizens at national, regional, and.

level.

What word is missing there? Each type of government has different roles and responsibilities.

They all work together to meet the needs of citizens at national, regional, and.

level.

What's that missing word? Let's check it then.

They all work together to meet the needs of citizens at national, regional, and local level.

That's right.

Well done.

It's time for task B.

This time, you're going to be filling in the gaps of this paragraph.

There's a word bank there in the middle.

Can you see? Six words.

You're gonna use those words to help you fill in this paragraph and make it make sense.

I'll read the paragraph to you and then you're going to use these words to fill in those gaps.

Local government is the system that manages counties.

and cities.

It is responsible for providing essential services such as schools, housing, public.

waste collection, parks, and social care.

The leaders of local governments are called.

and they're supported by lots of council officers.

Their job is to represent their.

and to work to address local issues.

They make important.

about rules, policies, and community projects.

Any decisions they make, have to follow the law set by.

government.

Pause the video to give you the time to do the task and then we'll go through it together.

How did you get on with it? Was it all right? Well, look at your screen now and you should be able to see the answers.

So pause this video, check your answers and then we'll come back to it.

Now, it's time to compare local and central governments.

We've been doing a little bit of that as we've been going along, but let's really focus on that now.

So if we think first of all about local government and central government, how can we compare their geographic areas? So that's the places and the areas that they have authority in.

Well, local government that has the responsibility and the authority in a local area like a town, a city, or a county.

So how does that compare to central government then? Well, central government has powers and authority over the whole of the UK area, doesn't it? That's right.

Let's now think about comparing in terms of roles and responsibilities.

Local government decides how local services are run, how facilities are run, how communities are run, and the things that they need to meet the needs of the local people.

And remember, what is needed in one local area maybe isn't needed in another.

Remember Jacob and Sam, totally different needs in their communities.

Jacob needed public transport whereas Sam needed access to libraries.

So it's up to local governments to meet those needs there.

But remember, they have to apply their policies and their rules, but it has to fit by law.

So they can't just make up their own laws.

Central government, they're responsible for things over the whole of the UK, aren't they? So remember things like security and defence, that's for the whole of the UK, not just a smaller area.

And that has the authority as well to make laws and to make the rules who apply to the entire state of the UK.

True or false? Local governments can choose their own laws for their own local area.

True or false? See the answer then, the answer is false.

No, they cannot choose their own laws for their local area.

Remember any policies or rules that they make, what do they have to abide by? Yes, they have to abide by the laws of central government, don't they? Laws are made by Parliament, that's a part of the central government, and local governments have to stick to this UK law within any policies that they make.

Let's carry on comparing then.

So let's think about local government and central government and how they're different and the same with decision-makers.

Now, both have to make decisions that are for the good of the people who live in this country.

But councillors, that's the name of the people for local government, they're mainly bothered about the people that live in the local area.

And anything that they do, any decisions that they make are focused just on that smaller area of the UK.

When you think about central governments, you've got the Members of Parliament, the MPs, who remember they're led by the prime minister.

They make decisions for the good of people across the UK.

So not just focused on that town or that city or that county.

And remember MPs, they lead those government departments.

And those government departments are also linked to local governments.

So although they've both got lots of decisions to make, how that's done is different with councillors at local governments and members of Parliament, that's central government.

Let's check your understanding then.

So true or false? Decision-makers in local government are MPs.

Decision-makers in local government are MPs.

Let's check that answer then.

Do you think that's true or is it false? It is false.

Why is it false? I'll give you five seconds to think about it.

So it's false because MPs are the decision-makers in central government, aren't they? Yes.

Well done.

The people who make decisions in local government are called counsellors, aren't they? Onto your final task then.

So your task is to fill in this table that you can see here.

And this is all about comparing the differences between local and central governments.

So you've got a local government column, you've got a central government column, and then you've got those three areas we've just spoken about, the geographical areas, so that's the place that they are, the roles and responsibilities, so that's the things that they have authority over, and then the third one is the decision-makers.

So who is it that makes those decisions? So you're going to fill in this table to compare those two kinds of governments with geographical, roles and responsibilities, and decision-making.

Pause this video to give yourself the time to do that and then come back when you're ready.

How did you get on with that one then? So have a look at the screen and you'll be able to see some of the suggested answers.

Yours might differ ever so slightly and that's okay because we're not gonna all write exactly the same way.

Have a look at this, compare your answers to it, pause the video and come with when you're ready.

Part two of this task is to sort these services and roles into the correct government.

So you've got six different ones there.

You've got waste collection, defence, education, social care, healthcare, and schools.

You need to decide which kind of government has responsibility or authority for these services.

Now, be careful because some of them are very similar, but they are under the authority of different kinds of government.

So you've got a local government column, you've got a central government column.

I want you to put these six services under the correct column to show which government has responsibility for them.

Pause the video to give yourself the time and then come back when you're ready.

Let's check these answers then.

So waste collection is a local government responsibility, as is social care and schools.

And central government has responsibility for defence, education, and healthcare.

So as I gave you the clue, some of them were very similar.

So schools and education are really similar.

And Aisha here is reminding you that central government does set out the education policy, so things like what is going to be taught, how many hours you have to spend on certain subjects over the week.

But local governments work directly with schools, so things like employing the teachers, making sure that children have school spaces, all of that sort of thing.

So whilst they're similar, different areas fall under different governments as to whose authority it is.

So let's sum up this lesson then.

How is local government different to central government? Well, we've learned that government is a group of people given the authority, that's the responsibility to govern and to make decisions.

And the UK's government style is a democracy.

Remember, a democracy is really important in giving citizens the right to say who they would like to be in charge of their country and to make their decisions.

And our central government in the UK is responsible for making sure that the needs of people across the whole of the UK are met.

But central government also devolves, they transfer some of that power to regional governments like Welsh Parliament, Scottish Parliament, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Local government is responsible for making sure that policies and the services that they provide meet the UK law.

Remember, they can't make their own laws, they have to stick to the UK law, but they have to make sure that any policies that they do have meet the needs of those residents.

And some of the differences in the people who lead local and central government is we've got leaders of the local government are councillors who remember are supported by council officers, and leaders in central government are called Members of Parliament or MPs.

And that's the end of our lesson.

A massive, massive well done.

I think you've been fantastic today with some really tricky concepts to understand.

So fantastic effort.

Really well done.

I hope to see you next time.