""The statement effectively delayed reform until the next parliament, a fact not lost on the commission's former chairman who wrote to "The Times" bemoaning the fact that ""The Government's review of local government structure, which was stated in 1949 to be already in being, appears to have led nowhere.This lack of decision is bad enough for local government, but surely the reconstitution of district authorities, without previous consideration of any of the functions or boundaries of the existing counties and county boroughs, or even any power to consider them simultaneously, would be a farce.""