Do councils "oversee" populations now?

A recent development in the ongoing controversy around asylum in the UK brought me to look into Cllr George Finch, who is apparently now the leader of the majority group on Warwickshire County Council. A quick Google shows that he's very young:

The council leader here in Cambridge for many years was Lewis Herbert, who likewise entered into very significant responsibility at an early age after helping get rid of the late Andrew McIntosh at the Greater London Council. Herbert oversaw a colossal budget and there didn't seem to be problems simply due to his age, though at that time the voting age was not itself controversial.

There is a weirdly-formatted PDF circulating purportedly from Cllr Finch, which looks like local government starting to flex its muscles on law and order versus the Home Office.

In any case, the weird note that prompted me to put down my thoughts was this:

The county council has more than 5,000 employees and oversees a population of about 600,000.

Is that really the kind of language we should be using about the role of local government? "Overseers", as though rate-payers constituted some kind of chain gang?