Series details: CRDA/72

The county of Humberside was created in 1974 following the introduction of the Local Government Act of 1972. It was composed of two halves either side of the Humber estuary, created using part of the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Parts of Lindsey. In local government terms it was abolished on 1 April 1996, with the establishment of four unitary authorities: North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, Kingston upon Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire. The name has continued in use as a geographic term and in the names of institutions such as Humberside Police and Fire Services. Several of the other "new" counties created in 1974, such as Avon and Cleveland, were also abolished and replaced with unitary authorities at this time.

In the years immediately following the establishment of the county it proved to be unpopular as can be seen by numerous campaigns, petitions and other manifestations of dissatisfaction with the new county, its name and its boundaries that took place1. Speaking in the House of Commons in 1994, James Cran, the MP for Beverley said. "I am sorry to say that Humberside county council was imposed on us by a Conservative Government back in the early 1970s. That was a considerable mistake. That is evidenced, if by nothing else, by the fact that almost the day after the decision was announced, a campaign began to have Humberside abolished. That was not a very good start. The result is that in 20 years or so no loyalty or, to be fair, little loyalty has built up between the electorate and Humberside county council2."

A formal review of Humberside was undertaken between July 1985 and July 1988 by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBC). The Commission recommended that there be no major change to the structure of local government in the area. The Department for the Environment guidelines were clear in stating that abolition of a principal area of local administration would be appropriate only in very exceptional circumstances, where the present arrangements were clearly failing to provide effective and convenient local government. LGBC's findings indicated that even allowing for the strength of feeling against the county, Humberside could not be shown to have failed to provide effective and convenient local government3. Immediately following this review, the Department for the Environment announced that LGBC would be asked to undertake a further review of Humberside. The Secretary of State accepted that, in the light of departmental guidelines, it was reasonable for LGBC to have concluded that it could not be shown that Humberside had failed to provide effective and convenient local government. However, he expressed concern at the degree of unhappiness at the concept of Humberside 15 years after its creation, and considered that the time had come to re-examine the justification for its existence. Consequently, LGBC were asked to carry out a further review as rapidly as possible. The terms of reference of the further review set aside the guidance against proposing the abolition of a principal local authority except in very exceptional circumstances. LGBC were specifically asked to study the radical option of dissolving the County of Humberside in the light of possible alternative arrangements and to consider the costs and benefits of introducing alternative arrangements compared with maintaining the present position. As part of carrying out their further review LGBC conducted a programme of survey research to investigate the attitudes to and preferences for the options for the future of Humberside among residents of the County and others who may be affected by the possible alternatives. Research Surveys of Great Britain Limited (RSGB) were commissioned to conduct this research.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey carried out by RSGB had the following specific aims:

• to determine the sense of identity with and loyalty towards the County of Humberside;
• to determine preferences for each of the proposed alternative arrangements;
• to investigate the reasons why people felt the way they did about the existing situation and the proposed options;
• to investigate how all these opinions and attitudes differed from one part of Humberside to another.

The outcome of the research was broadly in line with the findings of LGBC's previous review of the county. The majority of residents felt that the establishment of the county of Humberside had been a bad idea and in general they felt a stronger affiliation to the pre-1974 counties than they did to Humberside. The most popular of the alternative options for the area was the abolition of Humberside, with North Humberside being replaced by a separate county of East Yorkshire and South Humberside being transferred to Lincolnshire. The majority of Selby residents identified strongly with North Yorkshire and were opposed to becoming part of a new county of East Yorkshire.

Before any of the changes recommended by the 1989-1990 review of Humberside could be implemented a more general review of local government structures in the UK was introduced under the Local Government Act 1992. As part of this more widespread review the county of Humberside was abolished on 1 April 1996 and replaced by the four unitary local authorities referred to above.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey data was gathered by Research Services of Great Britain Ltd (RSGB) on behalf of the Local Government Boundary Commission of England.

Disks containing the survey data compiled by RSGB were transferred to The National Archives (TNA) as part of an LGBC registered file on the Humberside attitudes and preferences survey where they were given the reference AX 1/78/1 (the file itself is AX1/78).

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset held by NDAD comprises the data collected by RSGB as part of the survey they undertook on behalf of LGBC during their second review of Humberside carried out during 1989 and 1990. The survey consisted of a representative sample survey of 2918 residents aged 18 or over in private households in the County of Humberside and the District of Selby. The sample was structured so as to allow for separate analysis of views in the District of Selby and six areas of Humberside. Although Selby was part of North Yorkshire, not Humberside, it was decided to include interviews with Selby residents as part of the survey because one of the options for changing the local administration in Humberside included creating a county of East Yorkshire of which Selby would form a part. Following the reorganisation of Humberside in 1996 and the creation of the East Riding of Yorkshire county council, Selby remained as part of North Yorkshire. For a detailed description of the sample design see the RSGB research findings in the Dataset documentation catalogue, reference CRDA/72/DD/1/1. The survey took place between 7 November and 17 December 1989 when face-to-face interviews were conducted in the respondents' homes by RSGB interviewers.

Separate questionnaires were designed for Humberside and Selby residents which sought to obtain respondents' views on a range of key issues relating to the county of Humberside. Humberside residents were asked about their existing links with the county, whether their work and leisure activities tended to be contained within the county or outside it. Questions were also asked about the amount of travel between North and South Humberside in order to assess whether the Humber Bridge had helped to unify the county. The survey looked at the respondents' sense of identity with Humberside and in the case of the Selby residents with Yorkshire/North Yorkshire. Views were also sought on the county council administration and the issue of abolition. Finally, the survey presented respondents with five possible options for the future of Humberside and sought their views on these. The options were:

• Option 1A - keep the County of Humberside as it is with no change of boundary and no change of name.
• Option 1B - keep the present County boundaries but change the name of the County.
• Option 2 - abolish Humberside by transferring north Humberside into North Yorkshire and south Humberside into Lincolnshire.
• Option 3 - abolish Humberside by creating a new County of East Yorkshire from north Humberside and transferring south Humberside into Lincolnshire.
• Option 4 - abolish Humberside by creating a new County of East Yorkshire from north Humberside and also creating a new County of North Lincolnshire from south Humberside.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey was a one-off exercise carried out as part of an LGBC review of the future of Humberside. There will be no accruals to this series.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset and related dataset documentation are public records under the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the dataset and documents the reference AX 1/78.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset and related dataset documentation are open without restriction. Data is available for browsing on demand by users of NDAD and does not have to be booked in advance.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset and related dataset documentation are subject to Crown Copyright.

The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset and related dataset documentation are not subject to registration under the Data Protection Act.

The language of the materials is English.

Documents related to the Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset have been transferred to NDAD. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue for further details.

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The Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset consists of two tables which correspond to the two data files transferred to NDAD. The dataset was transferred to NDAD as two files containing data collected in the separate Humberside and Selby surveys, one survey per file.

Data in the Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset is closed in that once collected the data was archived and was not subsequently overwritten.

The data was recorded on questionnaire forms by interviewers working for RSGB who conducted the survey interviews in the respondents' homes between 7 November and 17 December 1989. See the Dataset Documentation catalogue, reference CRDA/72/DD/1/1 (pages 78-99), for copies of the survey forms.

Details of the content and transformation validation checks performed by NDAD on the Humberside attitudes and preferences survey dataset are recorded in the Dataset Catalogues: see Links to dataset catalogues.

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):

1. Attitudes towards and preferences for the pattern of counties on Humberside - Report of Research Findings, Research Surveys of Great Britain Limited, January 1990. Dataset Documentation catalogue, reference CRDA/72/DD/1/1 (pages 1-77).

2. UK Parliament, Official Report (Hansard) consulted on 4 July 2006. (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199394/cmhansrd/1994-05-26/Debate-6.html)

3. A Study of Attitudes and Preferences Towards the Options for the Future of Humberside, Project Specification. Dataset Documentation catalogue, reference CRDA/72/DD/1/1 (pages 100-113).