F or new unitary councils establishing shadow authorities, the immediate priority is meeting safe and legal requirements. With organisations, teams, democratic processes and essential services to bring together, attention is understandably focused on vesting day. Yet local government reorganisation is also a rare chance to rethink delivery, secure economies of scale and improve value for money.
The difficulty is that ambition and capacity rarely align. New unitaries may need to retain existing service arrangements from day one while integration follows later. Adult social care and children's services will rightly demand focus, leaving limited scope to redesign other services immediately.
Councils therefore need to keep long-term options open. Realigning services such as waste, environmental, facility management and property can reduce cost and improve resilience, but takes time to do well. Local authorities need a route that protects continuity while allowing transformation and savings to start sooner.
The usual options all carry risk. Outsourcing can lock councils into contracts that lack the flexibility complex integration requires. Traditional insourcing can add cost and demand capacity that may not exist, while creating a wholly owned trading company from scratch requires significant resource, expertise and investment.
So what is the answer? In my view, a partnership LATCo offers a practical middle way: control and flexibility without the burden of creating a company alone. Co-owned by the local authority and an established LATCo, it can use existing systems, people and commercial know-how to maintain services, unlock scale and bring forward savings.
A defined period – perhaps five years – gives the new local authority time to complete wider integration and shape its long-term strategy. After that, all options remain open: continuing the partnership, taking full ownership, bringing services in-house or going to market from a stronger position.
At Norse, we have developed council joint ventures for more than two decades. At their best, these models combine commercial discipline with a public service ethos, supporting external trading, shared returns and reinvestment in communities. As councils navigate local government reorganisation, partnership should be seen not as an end point, but as a way to keep choices open.
Justin Galliford is CEO of Norse Group
