Local Government Reform perspectives

Welcome to our series of interviews and reflections on Local Government reforms.   

Our new hub brings together the voices of experts with guidance and practical tools to help you navigate this new and changing landscape with clarity. 

In our new three-part podcast series, Amardeep Gill and Professor Catherine Staite, researcher and consultant specialising in leadership and governance in local government, explore the governance dimensions of local government reorganisation through the lens of 'ending well', examining what it means for dissolving councils to discharge their final governance obligations with the same rigour as their founding ones. The series draws on research and lived experience to argue that the quality of an ending directly shapes the effectiveness of what follows.

To accompany this, we also have a series of articles with Anna Earnshaw, a previous Deputy Chief Executive at Northamptonshire County Council, who looks at the different stages on how to create a cohesive culture. Drawing on her experience, Anna sets out practical lessons for leaders undertaking reorganisation, focusing on common pitfalls and the actions needed to build a cohesive, unified culture. She highlights the importance of early prioritisation, sustained communication, and creating something genuinely new rather than replicating legacy systems. Her insights emphasise that successful reorganisation depends as much on how people think, behave, and engage as it does on formal structures and processes. 

In our latest insights, Jasmin Mann offers commentary on Local Government Reorganisation. She looks at, what can appear to councils to be, complex and resource-intensive legal framework of the transition by delving at details from shadow authorities, explaining Sections 16 and 24, to the importance of ending matters well.