Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation - the impact it will have on our clients
The white paper on devolution in December 2024 led to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is currently progressing through Parliament.
Aims of devolution
The Government’s aim is to make local government more efficient and to make services less confusing for residents, as there will just be one body providing all services in their area, instead of several. Powers for the region will be devolved, in particular:
- Economic development
- Housing and planning
- Education and skills
- Climate change
- Transport
- Health and social care
Key impacts for local authorities
In-depth planning will be essential for such a significant and wholesale change. There will be costs associated with LGR and risks, which need to be scoped and planned for.
Systems and processes will likely be different in all the councils being brought together and this takes time, money and resource to address.
As with all change, LGR is likely to be unsettling for staff when the decision is made. To support staff retention and morale, good and early communications will be essential.
Associated with communications is culture and how the culture of the new authority is established and embedded across the whole organisation, whilst minimising departures. It is likely to take several years for new structures and cultures to be properly bedded in and adopted.
Impact on Revenues, Benefits and Parking teams
All the above will impact on Revenues, Benefits and Parking teams in a number of different ways.
System migrations and merging of data sets will be a crucial part of bringing multiple regional services together.
Processes will almost certainly be different in each of the authorities coming together. Work is required to map all, identity best practice and build a new process system for the new unitary authority.
It is likely that team structures will differ across the different teams in each authority.
The authorities coming together may also each have different Council Tax Reduction Schemes so that will need addressing, as well as determining the transition and timescale of transition, so that residents are consulted and feel the harmonisation is fair and clear. This harmonisation will also be required for other areas such as the business rate relief discretionary schemes and single empty property and premiums policies.
Annual billing will be a priority, so printing contracts may need to be extended to permit annual billing to continue, whilst tendering for new contracts under the new unitary authority.
Maintaining collection rates will be a priority, so maintaining regular lines of communication with enforcement, litigation and insolvency partners is paramount, as well as quickly aligning key performance indicators (KPI) across the service area.
The different authorities coming together into the new unitary authority will each have a plethora of contractual relationships which will need addressing. They will each have different terms and end dates, none of which is likely to conveniently fall on the vesting date! Most of these contracts are going to be of a size where a competitive tender is required and all are fundamental to maintaining collection rates and KPIs. These include, but are not limited to:
- Revenue and benefits systems
- Payment systems
- Printing
- Cash receipting
- Document management
- Enforcement agencies
You will need to define what you want and how many providers you want for enforcement, for example. This is a significant undertaking. In some cases, you may need to extend legacy system contracts to keep everything operational whilst the tenders are ongoing and this can have cost implications. Exploring the available options as soon as possible will help inform budget requirements.
A less visible impact is that ideas and plans for improvements are likely to be put on hold while all the work to manage the transition is being undertaken.
Whilst there is undoubtedly a great deal of work, there are operational positives that will come out of this. There can be advantages to stepping back and redesigning from new, rather than living with what you have which may have aspects that don’t work as well as they might. It is an opportunity to move away from legacy systems and plan for the way the future is anticipated to be.
There may, in time, be savings, but there is a significant initial investment to put all this in place.
A significant benefit for residents should be clarity of who provides which services and consistency of service across the region.
Overview of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
A cornerstone of the new legislation for England is the establishment of strategic mayoral authorities with unitary councils as the principal authorities below them. The Greater London Authority, led by the elected Mayor is an example of how the strategic mayoral authorities will work.
Power and budget in key aspects that impact the local area will be devolved from national Government to the strategic mayoral authority to apply a regional approach. The strategic mayoral authority, also referred to as for Mayoral Combined County Authorities (MCCA), will make strategic decisions and the unitary councils in their area will be responsible for service delivery.
In December 2024, applications for MCCAs were invited to take part in the Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) and six were selected in February 2025:
- Cumbria
- Cheshire and Warrington
- Greater Essex
- Hampshire and Solent
- Norfolk and Suffolk
- Sussex and Brighton
In terms of the unitary councils, some areas in England, Cornwall, Durham and North Yorkshire for example, have already reorganised into a Combined Authority and others will be supported though the Local Government Reorganisation Plan (LGR) to follow suit.
We can help
As Excel has its roots in Wales, we have already supported the Welsh unitary authorities with the enforcement aspects of LGR, following the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994. Get in touch if you would like to discuss further.
