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There is no time to redesign contracts in Surrey ahead of local government reorganisation, a council director has admitted.The thousands of existing contracts across Surrey CC and the county's districts have been catalogued and are now being analysed.But, writing for The MJ, Asmat Hussain, director of law and governance at Surrey CC, which has more than 1,200 active contracts, said: ‘There is no time for redesigning but only transitioning and being day one ready and safe and legal.'Advice from law firm Bevan Brittan, which helped Cumbria through reorganisation and is currently assisting Surrey, is that in an ideal world there would be a full review of each contract but, in most cases, it was best to look at arrangements after vesting day.The focus is currently therefore on major contracts ending before or not long after reorganisation takes place.Kirtpal Kaur Aujla, a partner at Bevan Brittan, said it was ‘lift and shift for the time being'.But chief executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), Mo Baines, warned of the ‘real risk that, for expediency, contracts are simply renewed or extended, rather than being properly reviewed and assessed for how effective they are in delivery terms, and indeed whether they meet the needs of the new authority and are capable of delivering efficiencies'.She said: ‘While it will be necessary for existing contracts to transfer across to the new councils APSE would guard against any tendency to simply upscale a contract to cover a wider geographic area or extend the scope of contracts simply because it is the easiest or quickest way to achieve coverage across the new council footprint.‘APSE's research on insourcing found that where contracts are brought back in-house this provides a genuine opportunity for councils to truly look at what a service needs now and, in the future, rather than simply applying a rinse and repeat approach to service delivery. ‘Opportunities for service transformation, arising from insourced contracts, includes considering the application of social value, local supply chains, ability to employ apprentices and of course ensure that the needs of service users are met in a responsive and agile way, including adoption of AI and digital interfaces with users. New councils coming together, which have mixed delivery models in their predecessor councils, may find they are able to rebuild managerial capacity in service delivery, providing additional opportunities for service innovation and ending silo delivery in favour of much more responsive local services.'

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REORGANISATION

EXCLUSIVE: Surrey skips reorganisation redesign ahead of reorganisation

By Dan Peters | 20 May 2026

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