This is the transcript of the webinar which took place on 14 October 2025.
4:41
Good afternoon, everyone.
4:43
My name is Claire Hogan and I'm the Assistant Director for Regional Improvement and Support here at the LGA.
4:51
I'm really pleased to be here, chairing this webinar that's looking at transitional leadership arrangements for LGR.
4:58
I oversee the LGA work across our regional teams and I know this is an issue of real concerns for councils across the country.
5:06
So this webinar is really timely and really important, especially as you move into the next phase of the LGR process.
5:15
Before I introduce the session and the speakers, I'd like to just mention a few housekeeping points.
5:21
If you'd like to ask a question, please post it in the Q&A tab.
5:24
Not the chat, the Q&A and upvote the questions which you like to see our speakers answer.
5:32
We'll be recording the presentations today, which will then be hosted on the LJS website, but the Q&A bit will not be recorded.
5:42
You can enable live captions for the presentation and discussion by going into the top of the screen via the Move the More button, sorry, followed by Language and Speech and then click Show Live Captions.
5:57
I hope that makes sense to everyone.
6:00
I've also mentioned that this event is part of our Improvement Sector Support programme which is funded by UK Government.
6:08
So we've got 2 fantastic speakers with us today with a huge amount of experience to share.
6:14
Doctor Justin Ives is currently Chief Exec at South Derbyshire Council and he's going to go through LGR for a massive third time.
6:23
Twice would be enough for anyone, but Justin's come back for 1/3 go added as well.
6:28
He loved it so much – so it might not be that bad – he went through LGR process in both Durham and North Yorkshire previously.
6:38
After we've heard from Justin, we'll then hear from Liz Elliot who's currently Deputy Chief Exec at Harbour District Council and this is her second experience of LGR.
6:50
So we've got some really experienced people.
6:53
Liz previously led the District Council through LGR in Northampton Chair and acted as the interim heads of paid service for North Northamptonshire Shadow Council.
7:03
So thank you to Liz and Justin for joining us today.
7:06
I think we've got loads to learn from them.
7:09
After the presentations, we'll have lots of time for Q&A.
7:12
So please do submit your questions as we go through and we'll try and get to as many of them as we can.
7:19
So thanks again for joining and I'm going to hand over to Justin now is going to do the first presentation.
7:24
Thank you.
7:30
Thanks, Claire.
7:31
I'm just waiting for my slides to show up.
7:39
Thank you.
7:41
So I've been asked to talk about governance through transition.
7:46
So next slide.
7:47
Slide, please.
7:48
Yeah.
7:48
So as Claire's just outlined, this is my third go.
7:54
It was in Durham in 2010 and North Yorkshire in 2023.
8:03
Really it kind of follows me about.
8:06
So I'm surprised I ever got another job in the District Council, but here I am.
8:13
Both of those reorganisations we've done under what's called the continuing authority model.
8:18
And I think for those of you who don't know, there's two forms of two routes the Minister can take when implementing local government reorganisation, either a continuing authority model or a new authority model.
8:30
Under a continuing authority model, 1 council is selected as the continuing authority, then all council staff should be into that authority.
8:42
Under the new authority model, there's no one council. Two brand new authorities or a new authority is created and everybody from every council should be across into that organisation.
8:57
Obviously there's pros and cons to both.
9:01
I've put a couple of them on the slide.
9:02
So around culture, if it's a new authority, obviously it's more than just in name.
9:07
Whereas, if it's a continuing authority to take North Yorkshire for example, the County Council was the continuing authority, the district's demised and everybody TUPE-d across that.
9:18
Culture of that organisation is still prevalent today.
9:22
I believe speaking to colleagues, it's a new name, but perhaps not a new council.
9:30
It reduces TUPE costs though.
9:31
So having a, having a continuing authority, when you think about the number of people that account council employees and the number of people that districts employee, there's a, there's a, there's a mass massive save them both in terms of time, energy and cost around TUPE.
9:45
And then there's obviously constitution policies and procedures.
9:49
If you have a continuing authority model, you're inheriting the constitution, the policies and the procedures of the continuing authority tweak to represent the new services that's yet on board.
9:59
Whereas you have new authority in cherry pick the best of everybody's and indeed from wider field.
10:08
Next slide, please.
10:11
So this is the route reorganisation.
10:15
This is this was my route to reorganisation.
10:18
Some people are before me in terms of submitting if you're on the priority programme, certainly if you are sorry, but what I would say is that governance evolves as we move through this process.
10:32
So actually when you're drafting a submission, there should have been some governance arrangements around that.
10:36
And I'm sure for everybody on this call there was post submission.
10:41
We need to decide what those governments arrangements are going to look like open till the decision.
10:47
Then there's post that decision and then there's actually after the shadow elections and those the bit outline here.
10:59
Next slide, please.
11:02
That's just reiterating that.
11:06
So sorry, it's a bit smaller slide, but it basically this is the governance structure that we're looking at for the bid I'm working on currently, which is the Derbyshire model, which was being developed by the districts, boroughs and City Council, excluding the County Council.
11:24
And this is a model that's been used in or similar models have been used in the two reorganisations I've just talked about.
11:33
So, at the top of it you have the leaders.
11:35
If you ignore the two Derbyshires, North Derbyshire, South Derbyshire. Derbyshire currently has a strategic leaders board.
11:43
hopefully will become the sort of the governing body for reorganisation prior to those two new councils being created.
11:54
Will then be Chief Executives Group will then be beneath that sort of a coordination group, beneath that a Day 1 readiness and a transformation group.
12:07
And I'll come in a little bit later about that and then PMO officers beneath that.
12:13
There'll be more like you've got the individual work streams.
12:16
Those work streams are split into two.
12:18
So you have the service work streams on the left and the support services on the right.
12:29
Why they've been split is because actually the support services have two jobs.
12:32
So the support services have the job of not only creating their own new world, but they also have to help everybody else create their new world as well.
12:41
Whereas the service work streams, they're concentrating on their own world.
12:49
Next slide, please.
12:52
Thank you.
12:53
So you should talk about work streams in North Yorkshire, North Yorkshire as the example of those 15 workstreams established beneath that sort of top level peer more structure I just talked about.
13:33
So in terms of workstream set up, I'll be used North Yorkshire as the example.
13:38
So there were 15 works work streams set up in North Yorkshire, but work stream lead for each That work stream lead was either the chief executive of a district or an executive director from the county.
13:54
There was a subject matter experts represented each district within the county.
14:00
There was a finance lead, a legal lead and then 2 PMO officers on each work stream.
14:10
So you'd see that they'd probably be between probably around 15 people on each work stream.
14:20
Next slide please.
14:27
And just to talk a little bit about how decisions making is made within those work streams.
14:34
So there's various decision points pre-shadow election and post-shadow election, because obviously what you can't do is predetermine or fetter the political will of the new council in establishing it.
14:48
So you need to be able to some decisions will be for the new council and his officers creating these bastes.
14:53
You can't that in any way, shape or form.
14:58
So up until the shadow election work streams were able to make some decisions.
15:06
Chief, the Chief Execs group reviewed all of those decisions.
15:09
There was a decision log and indeed some of the decisions were pushed up into the chief execs group for a decision for, for ultimately a decision.
15:19
That log was retained.
15:20
It was shared with the leaders group that sat above the chief execs group.
15:25
Although the leaders didn't make decisions at this point because it really wasn't for them to make, because it was about the new council.
15:30
But they were there just to oversee it and to be assured that we're moving in the right direction towards that vesting day target.
15:39
Once the new authority was established and there was a cabinet in place, post election, obviously the cabinet and council made those decisions, any decisions.
15:51
So there's a list of decisions that were that were waiting in the wings for those two, those bodies to make.
15:59
Then there was a clear flow of decision making up through the work stream as chief executive was annoying the cabinet and council decisions.
16:10
Next slide, please.
16:13
Yeah, So I'll talk a little about these.
16:15
So in terms of decision making, we retain decision logs and these were kept by each work trade, approved by the CEO group, reviewed for a political state by the strategic group.
16:27
And some matters were reserved for the shadow cabinet and council forced the shadow elections.
16:35
Next slide please.
16:38
So the work stream focus again very much linked to those decision points in a bit like what I said earlier on the diagram for Derbyshire where we've got a sort of the the safe and legal element and then the transformation bit that was selected out the separate.
16:54
So basically the decision points are linked to three outcomes.
16:59
Then the focus of the work streams was relentless in this.
17:01
So it was safe and legal and you'll hear a lot as you more through this process and it's about being able to establish a local authority on wrestling day that can operate safely and legally.
17:14
The next sort of standard is safe and legal plus.
17:18
So this is safe and legal, but with some bells and whistles on it.
17:23
A little bit of transformation perhaps working towards that objective.
17:30
Obviously that requires more resource.
17:32
Therefore there was a decision needed in the North Yorkshire model.
17:36
That decision was made by this, the CEO group to release resource back into the work stream to allow that change to be made.
17:45
The next standard is transformation.
17:47
This is true transformation.
17:48
So looking at the service and actually transforming it prior to vesting day, that requires a different decision.
17:56
That requires certainly a decision by the CEO group because actually it is, it requires probably significant resource allocation at a time where resources are constrained, particularly in terms of manpower.
18:08
And it may even require a cabinet or council decision which at which point would need to work or poor shadowy elections and those formation of the cabinet and council.
18:19
Next slide, please.
18:22
Keeping the wheels on.
18:23
Yeah.
18:24
So I think as the chief executive of a of a in North Yorkshire, the council that was about to demise, it was really difficult to keep the wheels on.
18:36
So it's trying to find a balance between building the new and maintaining the old.
18:42
I had massive staff retention issues.
18:45
I'm not sure if that would be the same in this round of local government reorganisation in North Yorkshire.
18:53
We were surrounded by unitary councils that weren't going through this process, which meant when jobs were coming up, the unitary councils next to us, we had a lot of people moving across those councils and I certainly lost a lot of colleagues to that.
19:09
Which meant that you're recruiting agency staff to fill those roles or you're asking other councils if they can share people.
19:17
Indeed, in my own role as chief executive for the last six months of Hambleton's existence, I was the chief executive and Section 151 officer, which is never a good mix.
19:27
I don't think the auditor was very happy about it, but there was really nothing more we could do at that point in time.
19:33
So it's about making sure you can try and keep your best people.
19:37
It's then a question of do you want consultants to build your new council or do you want your best people doing it?
19:43
And I would always say that actually when you're building a council, you want the people who are going to be operating it building it.
19:49
Therefore, there's a, there's a backfill issue, there's a so you a lot of the cost around local reorganisation.
19:57
Obviously assistance is a big cost, but also the backfill of staff to create these things is also a big cost.
20:05
And we did manage to make services and that was going through overtime agency arrangements.
20:09
And I think our local government has survived since austerity in 2010, a lot of goodwill.
20:16
But yeah, you don't underestimate the cost and time involved.
20:20
I would suggest next slide please.
20:25
So what worked well, both Durham and North Yorkshire was successful reorganisations, the governance was strong, the work stream approach worked really well.
20:39
There was a very certainly North Yorkshire, there was a massive programme management office that comes with significant cost, but the benefits were were really, really good.
20:52
And I would advocate for make sure the pay more is strong in collaboration.
20:59
So in North Yorkshire we didn't really start the work for local government reorganisation till after the minister made his decision.
21:08
And then it was all hands to the pump.
21:10
Differences were put aside and we'll really move forward.
21:14
But I think that's one of the things I'll talk about on my next slide.
21:17
If you can just move to the next slide please.
21:19
Yeah, We could probably have used the time between the submission of our bids and that decision more effectively.
21:28
It's around collaborating early and understanding that actually the bids have gone in the decisions beyond our control.
21:34
Now we just need to work together to make this happen.
21:37
There's lots of things you can do between sort of putting that bid in and that the minister making that decision that would aid you moving forward more quickly in terms of building those two new councils and doing a lot more transformation work rather than the safe and label work.
21:55
So I think that's probably a trick that was missed at both Durham and North Yorkshire.
22:01
I think in terms of those work streams, I think we could have engaged colleagues more in the work stream or more colleagues in the work streams.
22:09
So like I said, there was 15 to 20 people in each work stream.
22:12
I think it would have benefited from more workshop days and if you had more time, you could do that.
22:17
I think it's it's a race to the finish line in terms of trying to get this across the line.
22:23
And I think the other thing that the lesson that was learned was that there's never enough time.
22:28
So be clear on resource requirements when you're looking for transformation because it can't send you down rabbit holes.
22:36
So those are the lessons I would say.
22:38
Next slide and just questions.
22:40
So happy to take questions now or at the end.
22:44
Thank you, Justin.
22:47
That was great.
22:47
Thank you so much for sharing your insight.
22:50
If it's OK, I think we'll take questions in one go right at the end.
22:54
So, So what I'll do now, I'll hand over to Liz and to do a presentation and then we'll open up for Q&A.
22:59
But thanks Justin, that was great.
23:02
Liz, should I hand over to you?
23:04
Yes, thank you, Claire.
23:05
So hopefully you can see my first slide.
23:07
Is that OK?
23:10
Great.
23:11
So thank you.
23:13
Right.
23:14
So just I'm going to talk about the Northamptonshire experience slightly different because of the way it was created in the circumstances we were in that the challenges and the decisions and what you're about to face will be very, very similar.
23:29
And so I'll just run through some of the background, some of the how we did the government in leadership, some of those challenges and then some lessons learned on that.
23:39
I'm sure that anybody that's been in local government for more than five years will understand about Northamptonshire's financial crisis.
23:46
And it collapsed.
23:48
And following two Section 114 notices, we had an MHCLG commissioner and a further education commissioner from our children's services in there as well.
23:59
And it was all kick started by Max Caller’ss best value report, which coined the phrase do the boring well.
24:06
And the two unitaries were created following that best value report because it wasn't just the financial collapse of Northamptonshire County Council.
24:18
But, and this this resonates with something that Justin's just said is that actually the culture needed to change.
24:24
And the only way to change the culture was to not have a continuing authority model and to go to two brand new unitaries.
24:31
And so it was in, we started it in 2018.
24:37
Those of you with longer memories will know that that was about the time of Brexit.
24:41
They always say snap general election and then there was a pandemic to deal with as well.
24:48
So the pandemic in 2020, that's when our structural changes order was coming out really impacted on the delivery of the transformation and the and creation of those shadow authorities, mainly because really in the timeline we started working on a proposal to government following the Max caller report and those appointment to the commissioners and we put in a proposal to the Secretary of State in 2018.
25:16
We then got our structural changes order at the beginning of 2020 with a vesting day of 2021, and we were supposed to have shadow elections with that.
25:31
However, the elections were cancelled because of the pandemic, so we didn't have elections to the unitary authority until after vesting day, which was a challenge in itself.
25:44
So we set up through the structural changes order, the joint committee, the initial phase of that, the implementation side.
25:52
And then our structural changes order was very much more prescriptive than any of the following the organisations would be because we hadn't got a shadow authority in place and we had to have the shadow authority.
26:06
And for Northamptonshire was every councillor in every district and borough council and all the county councillors.
26:15
So North Northamptonshire's shadow authority was over 150 members.
26:19
And the shadow cabinet was every district leader and deputy leader and a representative from the County Council on our cabinet.
26:31
So it was very much more prescriptive than following reorganisations would be, but purely because COVID prevented us from having those shadow elections.
26:40
So we started off obviously with setting up, following their statutory instruments, the guidelines of what we need to do.
26:49
There was a joint implementation project which is very, very similar in design to the implementation governance arrangements that Justin's already outlined.
26:59
And building on some of the stuff that Justin said around and be prepared Now, I've quoted this a couple of times recently, is tidy a sock drawer now?
27:08
So you've got a nice tidy sock drawer ready for when you need it because there isn't enough time ever to do all of this transformation.
27:17
We did lots of audits on services, particularly around finances because we needed to get to the bottom of finances around.
27:24
Just knowing that your establishment matches your budget is a challenge in most organisations, let alone all of the assets that you needed to prove ownership for all of the different historian legacy systems rightly.
27:36
And then early communications and involvement was really key.
27:42
We did a large scale involvement of all councillors pre COVID so that we could all get 300 plus people in to talk about what does a good council look like, What do you want this council to be?
27:56
How can we make it better and take the opportunity to really make a difference and a change going forwards.
28:05
So I'm just waiting for my slides, move on.
28:08
Sorry about that.
28:09
OK, so just a quick summary of what the typical timeline is likely to be and it's not by any means prescribed or 100% accurately.
28:20
This is a rough idea of what we might want to see from about now and it's like 2 years out to about a year out from vesting day.
28:29
You'll start all that early planning and preparation, which is what Justin's gone through and the programme setup and making sure that your implementation tasks are noted in your programme managed board is programme board is all set up, your PMOs set up, and then you've got all that data and starting to be collated and starting to be verified.
28:52
About a year out from vesting day, you'll have your elections, which is something that I didn't have, but this is typical that you'll have those elections and then those shadow arrangements start to come in to place.
29:03
And regardless of whether your shadow elections have happened or not, the shadow authority still has the same requirements and decisions to be made on the first meeting.
29:13
You need to agree a constitution.
29:15
You need to look at a code of conduct for all of those members.
29:18
You need to think about members allowances.
29:20
You also need to think about how you're going to pay for that shadow year and people who where that money is going to come from.
29:26
Not the budget for the new unitary, but the budget for that shadow year.
29:30
Also some interim offices and that's where you need to appoint your interim head and head service monitoring officer and Section 151.
29:38
And then also the creation of those executive arrangements.
29:42
You will have elections that that creates an administration and they can form their executive.
29:48
As I said, mine was more prescribed in the structural changes all that, which was a challenge because I've got all of the old district and borough leaders who were feeling slightly aggrieved that they'd have to go through this process.
30:03
And the bits about Justin mentioned as well, trying to the old and embracing the new.
30:10
There was still quite a lot of legacy issues to sort out with that.
30:15
And as you come into a few months out, sort of six months out, you'll start looking at it and thinking about the size of the gap is on your MTFS and, and thinking about what you need to do and how you need to manage and financial sustainability of the new organisation.
30:31
You need to think about senior structures, what your target operating model looks like, but equally your fashion, your vision and values and how you're going to set the tone and the new culture of those organisations going forward.
30:46
Lots of them.
30:47
Transitional delivery up to vesting date, lots and lots of testing, making sure that safe and legal is absolute prior to day one.
30:57
And then post investing days when you start to transition and harmonise and rationalise and do quite a lot of the work, there is opportunity to do some of that and before vesting day, but be realistic in what you can and can't achieve.
31:12
But whatever you do, make sure it's a strong foundation for the future.
31:17
And that's just and don't fetter the decisions of the new organisations.
31:21
Whatever you do, start to build that really strong foundation for transformation in the future.
31:28
Just looking then at some of those sort of legal structures and the decision-making roles going forward and the structural changes order, as I've said, will establish all of those for you.
31:40
Start thinking about now what you look at other people's structural changes order because you will need to input into their structural changes order with MSC or G around what your unique circumstances might be from, you know, it might be the number of councillors that you've got and the different divisions that you might be using to with regards to that.
32:00
So it's probably good to read one or two if you haven't already.
32:03
Just so that you know what's in just structural change disorder.
32:06
And obviously one of the biggest decisions that they make initially is about the constitution code of conduct.
32:14
And if any of you have ever tried to refresh your constitution, it is a mammoth task.
32:19
So that needs to be starting really early.
32:22
Your monitoring officers will definitely have their work for them on that.
32:27
Lots of meetings and decision making and governance arrangements need to be put in place.
32:33
There's a creation of the leader and cabinets model that needs to go forward and all of the cabinets meetings need to be put in place.
32:40
Appointment of key offices, members, allowances and really importantly, scrutiny arrangements for transparency so that you've got that buy in of lots of all of the new members to your council and that they can shape and form how the new council is going to work.
32:57
Equally that it's transparent for the public as well.
33:01
And some of the typical issues that the executive would undertake rather than the shadow authority around your council tax decisions, how your harmonisation might work, what type of relief schemes that you might be looking at.
33:13
And their key role is implementation, monitoring and making sure that it's all on track for vesting day.
33:19
Safe and legal blueprints for the new organisations will be put forward so that you can have a look at Target operating model.
33:28
There were issues around pensions and budgets, corporate plans of all the things that you would expect a council would need to do and take forward.
33:36
But you're doing this at the same time as you've got existing councils that are still sovereign to some degree and still wanting to end well and legal legacy, as well as lots of new and enthusiastic and elective members who really want to embrace the future and take it forward.
33:54
So quite, quite a challenging and sometimes exhausting journey, but making sure that you've got those governance, strong governance and decision making protocols and there's recording of decisions and how they've been made withstanding really good stead.
34:11
So again, I'm just some of the leadership arrangements here.
34:15
I think scrutiny and task and finish groups being established really helps that being inclusive decision making.
34:22
You don't have to have everything through the cabinet and you can do that as you would do under any lead on cabinets and executive model.
34:29
You can have task and finish groups, you can ask routinely making recommendations and you can really involve a lot of of the newly elected lenders into what the new organisation looks like.
34:40
And that's really important for buy in and for ownership if that's where we're going and what our journey will be.
34:47
It's really important to collaborate across the growth of the unities in Northamptonshire.
34:53
We had lots of joint arrangements in because something just could not be like just cut in half on day one.
35:01
Things like IT systems and stuff.
35:02
We have to have some of those still joint arrangements in place.
35:06
But it's I think it's really important to have that one single programme to have a voice where you are working together on that.
35:13
It's one PMO, but it may be with different and bespoke areas for different decision making and governments in that making sure that you agree early on some of those governance structures and roles and responsibilities and those terms of reference and I think is something of it and will help as well.
35:29
Making sure that you know who's making those decisions when they're needed to to be done and to help you keep hitting those fine lines is again, really important.
35:38
But equally that visible political leadership for new organisations, for new members that are on the webinar and thinking about being into the Unitaries. that visible political leadership is really key to give confidence and trust in the new organisations for all stakeholders, residents, businesses, staff.
35:58
And that real strong message on culture and how we're going to do things in that new organisation I think is important, more important than some of the other decisions in my opinion.
36:10
Just bringing on some of that then.
36:13
So establishing stability and trust is really key initially.
36:17
So working with new members, working with predecessor councils.
36:20
So they'll be that year that you've still got some sovereign councils and councils as well as the new shadow authority in place and trying to end well and start well.
36:34
It's really important.
36:36
Make sure you celebrate what's happened in the past, but embrace the opportunity of the future can be quite tricky because emotions run high, especially around change.
36:47
And you know, people, people hold on to those and the civic pride of their own council that actually sometimes we just need to think about what the future is and what the best thing for our residents is and how we can improve their lives by working collaboratively together.
37:04
And that very much inclusive leadership approach.
37:07
Don't, if you've got a continuing authority model, try not to have that take over culture, encourage participation and try to build trust in in those new arrangements.
37:21
Just on that simply sorting incapacity.
37:24
And I know that just in I've got a lot of this as well, but some of those key workforce considerations, anxiety will be high and plan for change management early.
37:35
I'm already starting to do change management training in my organisation and coaching and mentoring for the future and how to make sure that we are all change ready.
37:43
Because if you're leading the change and you're impacted by the change, it can have a significant toll on you personally, also on the organisation and the way that you can have the support getting them through a very difficult time.
37:57
Your personal resilience and the time for you Sir, accept and be part of the change as well.
38:03
Don't forget to look after yourself because if you're not 100% of your game, you can't really be helping and supporting leadership for the organisation.
38:12
There are lots of 2P implications and terms and conditions.
38:16
If you can look for harmonisation on policies early, trying to do that.
38:20
But I would also say work with the unions early on as well, trying to look for the way forward and how we can get there and help and support the transition of a lot of stuff.
38:30
Particularly if you are breaking a authority of authority apart and lots of transfers to new organisations.
38:39
That culture of one team I guess needs to be really built on as well.
38:43
And trying to Co-locate people and getting them to work together early and to start to build those virtual teams that again, trying to make sure that you recognise the good that's in the other organisations that are may not be existing in the future.
39:00
And saying goodbye to the old.
39:02
Actually making sure you take forward that good practise as well.
39:05
That's really good.
39:06
And supporting the staff early on with career pathways and development.
39:09
Sometimes having difficult conversations, say where do you see your future?
39:13
Do you want your future to be in the new organisation and whereas where are the opportunities for that?
39:19
How can we make you ready for unitary, particularly those in district councils where it will be a very different experience for them because it's of the size and scale if nothing else.
39:32
So and also again that strong visible leadership.
39:37
I would suggest that appointment to those permanent roles as soon as possible.
39:43
In the structural changes, or it's only about December, you say that you've given a deadline for a chief executive.
39:49
If you can appoint early and then you get that.
39:52
You've got your political leadership in place and you've got that, then strong officer leadership, that managerial leadership, get those on board as soon as possible.
40:02
And then that vision and culture and the way that you want to work will really be embedded from day one.
40:09
Again, on resourcing capacities, financial considerations in Northamptonshire, this was a big, big issue and the County Council, by the time we got to investing day actually had pulled its finances back on track and it was going forward in a much more positive way.
40:27
And but you need to be making sure that you're looking at the cost sharing and one version of the truth, making sure there are no shocks after best in day that all of a sudden you found something over here that nobody realised.
40:41
So being really rigorous, I wouldn't say that I'm an, I'm an accountant as well, just in so too many accountants on the call maybe.
40:48
But it's really important to have that rigour in those finances, particularly because of the challenges that you will face as a unit to all of those different pressures on from social care that we all recognise.
41:03
And also thinking about your accounts tax early on that harmonisation, the cash tax reduction scheme, because you'll need to think about the size of the budget you've got and your cash tax requirements, because you won't actually know your final allocation as none of us do up until probably about Christmas before the, the, the start of the new financial year.
41:22
But equally, be realistic on the cost of transformation will change and the savings and efficiencies that you can generate.
41:29
And it will take a long time to implement some of those changes.
41:33
And it will cost quite a lot of money to, to forward from some of those transformations, if that's what you want to do.
41:41
Also be mindful that there might be again, Section 24, which is around decisions need to be almost put forward through the shadow arrangements for those sovereign bodies if they could potentially fetter the decisions of the new unit organisation.
42:03
And also being really clear about how you're going to share assets and liabilities on a balance sheet, particularly in Northamptonshire, which took a long time to resolve that.
42:12
So trying to get ahead of the game and being clear on those things.
42:15
I'm trying to get as much agreement in principle as you can.
42:20
Obviously, there will need to be negotiations as you go through that process as well.
42:25
And as I would say, keep that strong financial management from the start and keep that rigour going forward because financial sustainability is one of the key challenges that we were facing with the initial council.
42:41
I won't dwell too much on the programme doing transformation because I've just gone through that in some detail, but just some of the key things.
42:48
To me, safe and legal is the prize.
42:51
Making sure that you can identify those and having contingency plans in place, making sure uninterrupted service delivery and importantly, safeguarding for vulnerable adults and children is really important.
43:03
Try and get those blueprints and the operating model agreed and look at service designs to integrate departments if possible before vesting day so that you've got at least the basis for change in future years.
43:13
And then know your direction of travel.
43:16
IT is one of the biggest challenges that you will face and will take a lot of time and resources and compatibility, integration, data migration, cybersecurity.
43:27
You need to have the basics in place for day one, but don't expect the IT to be done for a very long time.
43:33
It takes a long time to undo legacy systems, but if you know what your architects and systems need to be, they've got to be right.
43:40
So don't rush it.
43:41
Have that single identity for day one.
43:45
You might click on a web page that says your new organisation name and but actually where it goes to in the background might still be some of those missing issues.
43:54
I would say stabilise, then innovate, make sure that you've got that and consistency for day one and then making sure that you can look to make changes as quickly as possible.
44:04
But as I said, be realistic in your aspirations for that and also trying to map that sort of service delivery early on and identify not only the differences but Wayne's got commonality as well.
44:18
So there are some things that we do the same.
44:21
There are things we can really build on and start to build quick wins for making it feel like 1 organisation and one team going forward.
44:32
Comms and engagements.
44:34
We always say don't really could have done comms better, so do comms and then more comms.
44:38
Making sure it's a consistent message I think is really important.
44:42
Making sure that you're engaging stakeholders again and with that would be really key and being as transparent as possible.
44:49
Trying to maintain that one voice in the organisation for the media, trying to get that early reputational presence in the media is this is what we're setting out, this is our intention, this is what we're all about.
45:03
Trying to build that reputation early would be really good.
45:05
So again, that kind of strong political leadership, having that cabinet and modelling place and the leader of the organisation really leaning forward on the change early would be my suggestion.
45:16
And again, celebrating the successes and the milestones that you achieve on your journey, some of the core challenges that you'll face and I think will be about getting that financial clarity, getting that one version of the truth and then agreeing how you share it all out and who gets what and, and where it all sits leads, you know, some of the assets.
45:39
Who's going to have the biggest headquarters?
45:41
Where are your headquarters going to be?
45:44
Is that's a clean bone of contention for some people.
45:48
Do you want to hub and spoke.
45:50
Don't underestimate the this the time it takes to make decisions around where your offices are, what your logo might be, what your corporate colour scheme might be.
46:03
So so these things do take time and that's in in the shadow year.
46:08
You will be needing to put all of those things in place ready and get those agreements ready to hit the ground.
46:15
running on vesting day, making sure that you've got those decisions and and out, making sure that you know what needs to be done and giving yourself time to do that.
46:27
Involving people again will be really huge without being transparent.
46:33
There's tasking finish groups again involving all members but publishing minutes.
46:37
We didn't do that as much as we possibly could have done in Northamptonshire and but equally getting public oversight and their engagement into the new organisation will be really important as well.
46:52
Just coming on then to some of those lessons learned and some practical advice.
46:58
Get your financial baseline ready.
47:00
Make sure that Safe and Legal is your priority.
47:03
Keep scrutinising and transparency.
47:06
Try and get as many people involved as possible.
47:09
Really invest in your people and culture early on and that includes your members as well as your staff.
47:15
Don't forget that members are going through change as well, that some of them and a unitary council will be very nice for members as well.
47:23
Their roles and responsibility will be very different for a lot of members as well.
47:28
Coming into this, you'll have new members, that introduction programme and change management for them will be really key as well as your staff.
47:35
So don't forget your members and how to get them on board and trained it as well.
47:40
You'll have that year with the Shadow that you can really work on your member development and skills and helping them to be good unitary counsellors.
47:49
So don't waste that time in investing in main as well and keep communicating all the time, whether it's across stakeholder groups, with the public, with the residents, with staff.
47:59
Please make sure that those communications keep coming out.
48:03
As I said, Comms, more comms and then some more comms and stuff and some specific lessons around.
48:09
So that governance, particularly making sure that you've got that transparency in place, making sure that you can get some agreements and some guiding principles so that the decisions are made with good advice with in line with what your ambitions are, is really important.
48:27
And then making sure that you are prioritising stability over ambition.
48:32
We all want to change, we want to take the opportunity and absolutely we should be doing that in a lifetime opportunity to change local government for the better.
48:41
But let's be realistic about that and make sure that we've got a strong foundation that we can do safe and legal class that equally we've got a good road map and we've got we know where we're going and that vision and values will be really important.
48:56
Investing the time in the shadow authority year to get vision, values, culture, decision making, strong financial management, good prioritisation, corporate plans, all of that.
49:12
Strong foundations I would say is where you will need to put most of your energy.
49:18
You'll probably have an easier time than I did because you won't have as many shadow authority members as I did and equally they'll all be new and in post ready to take on board the new organisation.
49:31
And what you do will be the finished article in Northamptonshire because we haven't had those elections.
49:38
We were working on Vision, Valeries, logos, corporate plans, but actually they weren't the elected members that were going to take those forward.
49:47
And because the election hadn't happened and then we've done a really good job and a good foundation, you can't not do it.
49:54
But in Northamptonshire we did have some change of members as well election.
49:58
So a slight difference there that you will have those members.
50:01
So work with them and really embed a strong foundation would be my final comments.
50:09
Just looking back then and summing up, managing these complex reorganisations is really difficult, but it's really exciting too, so we can create something that is better than the sum of its old parts and that should be our ambition to do that.
50:26
Strong governance is really important because you will need to rely on those decisions going forward and making sure that you've got those and decision and safe and legal in place absolutely is imperative.
50:39
And then leadership and planning, making sure that you're combining that really effective leadership to drive the outcomes in reorganisation and as we all want to do as public services really do that because we want to improve people's lives and make it all better.
50:55
And that's it.
50:57
Thank you very much for listening, Liz, Justin, thank you so much for sharing your input in your insights.
51:06
Absolutely.
51:07
I'm invaluable to colleagues who are embarking or part way through their LGR journey.
51:14
A lot of the things kinds of that you both spoke about resonated with me.
51:18
Certainly a name my supportive part of the LGA to help other councils go through previous rounds of local government reorganisation.
51:28
So the comms, the importance of you, you cannot communicate enough to people and people in different organisations getting the same message at the same time, members and staff just being really important.
51:42
I think the pace is immense, isn't it?
51:44
And the aim, just the enormity of the task and feel a bit overwhelming.
51:48
But we're hearing you both talking through the bite sized chunks of things being really helpful.
51:55
I think a couple of just observations from me, what 1 of the things I noticed with some of the council's that I work through on LGR was sometimes members felt a little bit squeezed out of their, what they think is their space just because of the pace always move into the next deadline and officers work into that deadline.
52:18
So the opportunity to kind of reset that and get members back into their space once aim the footprints of the organisation has been agreed I think is really important.
52:30
And then just some of those practical aim smaller things.
52:35
But very symbolically, you mentioned taking some time about the logo and where your office space is going to be.
52:43
I think I did some work with one relatively new unitary a while ago that three years in staff were still wearing different lanyards.
52:53
The signage on some of the buildings were still from the legacy councils.
52:56
They're small, small things, but they symbolically they do mean a lot.
53:00
So, you know, being able to think through some of those things as well as the big stuff like the budget and keeping the wheels on and making sure we're delivering services for residents.
53:09
So, so all that was just super helpful.