The act abolished the system of poor law unions in England and Wales and their boards of guardians, transferring their powers to local authorities.

It also gave county councils increased powers over highways, and made provisions for the restructuring of urban and rural districts as more efficient local government areas.

The 1929 act sought to solve a problem that had arisen in the existing scheme of local government, with administrative counties divided into many small urban and rural districts.

[2] The first orders under the act were made in 1932, and in November 1936 Robert Hudson, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, was able to report that the process was nearly completed.

It was originally envisioned that reviews would be carried out every ten years, but the intervention of the Second World War and legislation in 1945 creating a Local Government Boundary Commission meant that there were no further large scale changes in administrative areas until the period 1965–1968.