On Wednesday 11 February 2026, the Local Government Association and Local Partnerships ran a webinar focusing on collaborating on data, designed to make delegates aware of the templates and tools available to them as they go through local government reorganisation (LGR).
The session was chaired by Louise Smith, senior devolution and LGR coordinator at the LGA. Participants heard first from Keith Macdonald, a senior product designer at Local Digital/MHCLG, who spoke about the upcoming LGR Digital Playbook and provided advice about data collaboration. Following this, Joran Mendel, a senior director and data analyst at Local Partnerships (LP), provided an update on the data collection templates that have been produced by LP following their work on data with the district and borough councils in Surrey.
This webinar was part of a mini-series run in collaboration between the LGA and LP called ‘Get LGR data-ready’.
Resources
All of the resources shared in this session will be linked in the upcoming LGR Toolkit, which will launch on Friday 13 February on the LGA website.
- The full webinar series, including the recordings of previous sessions, can also be found on the Local Partnerships website and on the LGR/Devo Hub.
- Local Partnerships' data sharing templates can also be found on their website. To receive updates about the latest templates being released, sign up for their newsletter.
- The LGA's data sharing principles and checklist can be found here on the LGA website.
- The MHCLG LGR Digital Playbook is expected to be launched via the Local Digital website later this month.
The MHCLG LGR Digital Playbook
Speaker: Keith Macdonald, senior product designer at Local Digital / MHCLG
Keith introduced the LGR Digital Playbook which is expected to be launched via the Local Digital website later this month. The playbook will include downloadable resources. He explained that the playbook:
- Is a hands-on practical resource to support councils through the digital, data, and cyber and technical aspects of LGR.
- Includes actionable guidance, checklist and tools that are grounded in the experience of councils which have gone through LGR.
- Is designed to be a dynamic resource evolving as new challenges and solutions emerge from the sector, allowing peers to learn from each other and avoid people ‘reinventing the wheel’.
- Aims to help councils be operational, safe, legal and compliant from day one.
- Is designed primarily for digital, data and technology practitioners, IT teams, procurement teams, and the LGR PMO, but also includes information designed for senior leaders.
- Has been co-designed with councils who have shared their experience and learning.
The three main sections of the initial resources are focused on:
- Being ready for day one: Outlines minimum digital and technology services needed for safe and legal compliance on vesting day.
- Managing expectations: Provides guidance on communication, realistic timelines, and aligning political and staff expectations.
- Collaboration and baselining: Emphasises early collaboration and establishing shared baseline of systems, contracts, and data.
As the resource develops, it will also include:
- Cyber readiness focus: Future resources will address cyber readiness, incident response, and resilience within the Cyber Assessment Framework.
- Data and service disaggregation: Guidance will be provided on safely and legally separating shared systems and data for better management.
- Leadership during transition: Practical guidance will support digital and cyber leadership in the first 100 days and beyond.
Collaboration and baselining
Speaker: Keith Macdonald, senior product designer at Local Digital / MHCLG
Keith went on to talk about the importance of collaboration and baselining data throughout the LGR process.
Councils that have already been through the process consistently emphasise that early teamwork and shared understanding of systems, data and contracts make day one operations smoother and reduce challenges later on. Most issues experienced elsewhere stemmed from organisational disconnects and limited visibility across departments.
Why does collaboration and baselining matter?
- Baselining establishes a shared, accurate picture of systems, contracts, data and capabilities across all councils.
- Early collaboration supports informed decision-making, proactive risk management and proper support for essential systems from the start.
- Most difficulties reported by LGR-experienced councils arose from poor visibility across departments and councils, siloed information, and misaligned expectations between teams.
A wide range of stakeholders should be engaged early in this process, including:
- DDAT practitioners and leads, and cyber leads (especially for statutory and high-risk services)
- finance and Section 151 officers
- procurement and contract management teams
- legal and information governance teams
- HR, where systems affect workforce management
- programme and PMO leads.
Starting conversations across all organisations early, even before final decisions on unitary status, is one of the most important success factors. In particular, councils should try and get a shared understanding of what the ‘day one’ priorities are, before planning longer term goals.
A minimum baseline dataset should include:
- system and application information (product name, aliases, version, hosting model, on-prem dependencies)
- contract details (start date, end date, renewal date, support arrangements)
- details of any ongoing procurements or implementations
- standardised contract and application registers across councils to support data sharing.
Baselining should be proportionate, focusing on what most effects risk and operational continuity. This might involve prioritising:
- establishing which services are statutory or safety critical
- creating a list of day one essential systems
- identifying shared services and systems with upcoming renewals or break points
- establishing which systems are heavily customised
- managing sensitive datasets or areas with known operational/workforce risk.
Attempting to baseline everything in detail is not recommended.
Common challenges and risks identified during baselining in previous rounds of LGR have included:
- incomplete visibility of software contracts across service teams
- underestimation of cyber and data risks
- overoptimism about integration complexity
- unclear contract ownership
- supplier capacity constraints
- single points of failure where knowledge sits with very few staff
- inconsistent cyber and resilience controls
- unsupported or end-of-life systems
- incorrect assumptions about how systems operate in different councils
- hidden dependencies and undocumented integrations.
These risks should be mapped and managed early on, to ensure a safe and legal system on day one.
Data collection templates and future work
Speaker: Joran Mendel, senior director and data analyst at Local Partnerships
Joran explained that the data collection templates produced by Local Partnerships (LP) have been based on LP’s work with the district and borough councils in Surrey to collect and standardise data.
Joran conducted a Slido poll to get input from delegates about where they were in their LGR and data management journey. This poll will be used to inform future work on the data collection templates. Joran invited delates in the call and also those who were unable to attend to get in touch with LP to provide feedback on the templates and give suggestions for any further resources that are required.
Joran explained that in December 2025, LP released five data collection templates which were driven by the priority areas for the Surrey district and boroughs at the beginning of their data collection process. These are on the following topics:
- housing
- contracts
- waste
- elections
- revenue and benefits.
Joran acknowledged that data templates get us part of the way towards good data mapping, but the process requires collaboration and senior buy-in early on to be successful. The templates will also need to be adapted to local needs, so requires local knowledge and collaboration to map out priorities for the area.
Joran then set out the timetable for releasing new templates on the following topics:
- Friday 13 February 2026: Finance, HR, and town planning
- Friday 27 February 2026: Climate, DDaT, and legal
- Friday 13 March 2026: Adult social care, corporate, and audit
- Friday 27 March 2026: Community services, facilities management and assets.
In April, LP intends to produce further guidance about how to produce insight from the data once it has been collected. Delegates attending the session used the Slido poll to suggest that other services such as children’s social care and highways should be captured in future data collection templates. LP intends to look at these topics once they have produce templates for the themes outlined in the timetable above.