Regions of England
The Region is the first level of administrative division, below the United Kingdom national government, within the country of England. Historically, the administrative divisions of England included Counties, Unitarian Authorities and Metropolitan counties. There were many attempts to rationalise these small divisions into a regional structure after world world war two. In 1972, the local government act reformed the administration of Scotland and Wales into regions but implementation in England was delayed and piecemeal. Some government departments set up regional offices with limited roles and the boundaries varied form department to department. In 1994, under John Major's government, 10 Regional offices were set up in order to standardise the regional boundaries across all departments. The new Labor government in 1997 used the Regional setup to establish Regional Development Agencies. Later, in 1998, the Region of Merseyside was merged into the North East Region, reducing the number to just 9 Regions. The regions borders also form the European Parliament constituencies for England.
Only one region - London - has a directly elected administration in the form of the London Assembly, Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The other regions have appointed assemblies containing members nominated by the county councils within each region. A referendum was held on 4 November 2004 in the North East Region on whither people wanted and elected assembly with devolved powers. The proposal was rejected and plans for referendums in other Regions have been put on hold indefinitely.