Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) case study - Future Northants 

Northamptonshire's LGR Programme was known as the Future Northants Programme. It was a highly complex Programme that had a twin track focus on transition and transformation to create two large unitary councils from the existing County Council and seven District and Borough Councils, by vesting day, 1st April 2021.

 

 The Future Northants Programme was described as the most ambitious and complex reorganization, even prior to the challenges presented to delivery by the pandemic. With a population of over 750,000 people, the task was to create two new supersize Councils from the existing seven district and borough councils along with a county council, which had faced unprecedented financial challenges, including two Section 114 notices.

 

The business case set out in the Prospectus for Change set an ambition to deliver £85m financial benefits, including investment in a new ERP system, a new social care records system and MS365.

 

It also required (by DfE), the creation of a Children’s Trust working across the whole of Northamptonshire prior to vesting day, 1st April 2021.

 

Integration of Health and Social Care was also at the heart of the programme starting with a completely transformed adult social care model, working closely with a strategic partner.

 

The disaggregation of County Council services and budgets and the integration of District and Borough Councils involving a total workforce in excess of 5,000.

 

The programme arrangements that underpinned this were significant, requiring highly structured and effective governance which had elected members at the centre of decision making and maintained their full engagement throughout the delivery of the Programme.

 

It also included the establishment of a programme team that worked closely with services and senior managers to run a design phase, through to implementation and stabilisation. At its peak there were circa 100 people in the programme team and hundreds of people across all eight Councils, heavily involved and contributing at a service level.

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Front line staff were also heavily engaged to ensure two-way feedback and communication through a formal "change champions" programme which helped to disseminate information to front line services and engage staff positively as they went through considerable change.

 

The effectiveness of the programme has been externally validated and has been truly stress tested during the pandemic and was delivered on time, to budget and left a legacy transformation function now working to embed new ways of working to realise the full benefits of a single tier model. Through the transformational approach to service delivery and savings, a legacy revenue reserve of £105m at close of accounts was made available to the two new Unitary Councils giving them a sound foundation to start their new organisations.

 

The programme approach and cohesive and robust governance arrangements were instrumental in ensuring progress and impact through the most challenging times. The key component of the governance had been the involvement of Elected Members who have been instrumental in setting out the vision and values enabling two clear blueprints to be implemented for vesting day.

 

Chief Executives also had key roles, by leading programmes of work and overseeing the delivery of the overarching programme, in a distributed leadership model, led by Theresa Grant,OBE as the Strategic Delivery Director, Paul Helsby as the Programme Director and Sharon Richardson as the Programme Architect Lead.

 

To ensure its successful delivery, there was a close alignment to MHCLG, who attended all the Leader’s Oversight Boards which helped to build a positive engagement with government representatives and provided them with a high level of assurance on delivery. 

 

The financial benefits exceeded £84m with £50m of that having been delivered prior to vesting day 2021, with the remainder delivered in a clearly defined and resourced programme over two years post vesting day.

 

This is in the context of having to aggregate staff, budgets, buildings etc. across District and Borough Councils and disaggregate the same for the County Council to create North and West Northamptonshire Councils, avoiding the many potential pitfalls of stranded services and costs through the controls put in place in the programme. To ensure that both new Councils were able to operate in a safe and legal state from vesting day, a very robust critical path was built and closely monitored throughout the implementation phase.

 

All of the activity was delivered without slippage during the Pandemic, showing the strength of the planning and programme controls, the model of governance and the commitment of the programme team that this could still be delivered within the timescales set by Government.

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Finally, it was imperative that when closing down the existing Council's that we ended well, celebrating the successes that each Council had achieved and remembering the people that played their part in delivering services across Local Government.