Local government reorganisation is about merging cultures. Join the conversation on Linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_localgovernment-lgr-publicservicetransformation-ugcPost-7485626195032641536-KIro/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAADUV_eUBZSxZvFpx70OV050F6K5HM2MhTMo
What happens when the people getting a new council safely to day one are also the people who will have to make it work on day two?
I’ve just recorded an interview with Simon Higgins, who has an unusually useful perspective on local government reorganisation. Simon was part of the senior team delivering LGR in Cumbria, with responsibility for customer and digital and a wider role on the day one board. He then ‘crossed vesting day; and became Director of Resources at the new Cumberland Council. So he knows both what it takes to establish a council and what you discover afterwards that you should have done earlier.
Three things from the conversation struck me.
First, LGR can’t simply be added to the senior team’s existing workload – it really can’t.
Leaders are simultaneously running the current councils, managing the things councillors still want their authorities to achieve, and creating entirely new organisations. Simon described it as the largest, most complex, and most emotionally draining change he had experienced. Treating it as ‘one more programme’ is a serious capacity error.
Second, ‘safe and legal’ is essential, but it isn’t an operating model.
The disciplined, detailed, and sometimes boring work of getting every day-one dependency under control matters enormously. But councils also need to be thinking before vesting about financial viability, assets, leadership, structures, and what happens in years one, two, and three. Otherwise, the new organisation lands – ‘safely’ – and immediately starts scrambling to deal with its own messes.
Third, culture is not a county culture meeting a district culture. Every authority is different.
I found it so insightful how Simon pointed out that someone People may move from a broad jobs in an organisation of 250 people, with direct access to the chief executive, into a much narrower role – managing a bigger budget – in an organisation of 4,000 folks. That changes responsibility, identity, status, relationships, and how leadership works.
Simon is now one of the lead consultants in the RedQuadrant LGR and Devolution Hub. The Hub brings together people who have done this work from inside councils, alongside specialist capacity that can be used when and where it is needed.
The full interview is here: https://lnkd.in/eZZ35yq6
#LocalGovernment#LGR#PublicServiceTransformation
chosen path 