I know similar questions have been asked before but none have given me exactly what I need. I am trying to find boundary shapefile data for the UK which splits different subdivisons into different layers (the exact number of subdivisions doesn't matter), with each feature of a layer referencing it's parent in the above layer.
I would like the data to be 'clean' in that each layer only has appropriate regions, e.g. a county and city aren't on the same layer, so that all features of a layer are of a similar size and no features are surrounded entirely by another feature on the same layer (an enclave).
The closest I have got so far is at gadm.org, which provided shapefiles with perfect attributes, however Unitary Authorities were listed separately to their parent county on the same layer (e.g. Nottingham was an enclave within Nottinghamshire on the county layer, and thus in the next layer down Nottingham's parent layer was Nottingham, not Nottinghamshire). I could merge these and change the data for the parent, but this would have to be done manually which isn't preferable.