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I f you had to pick a council chief executive who ran on Duracell batteries (readers of a certain age will know what I mean) it would be Jonathan Stephenson.While many would predict running two councils – in his case Brentwood BC and Rochford DC in Essex – would be enough to require a crate of Red Bull under the desk, Stephenson has still found time to set up the Public Sector Challenge, raising impressive sums for Cancer Research UK.Still not content, he has now stepped up to chair the chief executives' group on the Local Councils Network (LCN) – formerly the District Councils' Network.‘We've got a cohort of up to 170 councils – that's leaders, chief executives, senior officers, junior officers – and it's going to be about how we bring all of them together for one shared purpose.'He says the ‘rebrand' aims to focus on ‘local councils being local' as reorganisation begins to become a reality.‘A lot of the world is actually delivered on a more local level than this country,' emphasises Stephenson.‘It doesn't mean you can't deliver services on a larger scale in partnership, but it's about local delivery. When you need a service, you need to know where to go.‘We've got a cohort of up to 170 councils – that's leaders, chief executives, senior officers, junior officers – and it's going to be about how we bring all of them together for one shared purpose.'But he emphasises that LCN should not be seen as a threat to the sector's other representative bodies, rather as a ‘complementary special interest group working with' the Local Government Association.‘We're not here to be anything else.'Stephenson says there were even early questions about whether LCN would be looking to attract town and parish councils to its ranks.‘That's not our purpose. I think by changing the name, some people's nervousness has been that this is a takeover in some way. It isn't. This is a rebrand and a reset as well, knowing that we're going into a new world.'A ‘new world' where – with its recent announcements on reorganisation for Devolution Priority Programme areas – the Government has recognised the case put forward by the network in favour of smaller, more local councils as the optimum model for new unitaries.But there remain concerns in some quarters that district-dominated new unitaries will not have the expertise to manage the big spending services currently fronted by counties. How does Stephenson respond to this?‘We're working with our unitary colleagues that are members, or will be future members, to learn from that space.‘But just because we might not have had control of those services, we care about the people that live in our areas. So, whether it's a referral or, with regard to SEND [special educational needs and disabilities] for someone's child or whether it's adult social care support for a person needing a care package, it doesn't mean the district, borough and city councils wouldn't have lobbied for support or maybe just engaged their county colleagues.‘There is a big learning curve, we're not underestimating that. But it's about awareness and understanding the needs of people and what they require.‘When we create these unitaries, this is equals coming together to create a new authority. So, the learning comes with the partners that come together with that. The county council in Essex brings adults and children's experts, highways and trading standards people with them to the party.‘This isn't the districts, boroughs and cities taking over and thinking our knowledge has to increase so much because we're going to run those services from scratch.‘We're creating a team of people that have got expertise in both county and district services, and that's a good thing.'The greater challenge for Stephenson is managing the disruption of moving to a unitary.‘And that's why LCN are trying to develop best practice support around development for members and officers to help with onboarding,' he says.With a new political reality emerging, without the age-old certainty of two or three party structures, LCN is stepping into its cross-party credentials.‘Richard [Wright] as chair takes on views from all political parties,' explains Stephenson. ‘He's very much engaged in trying to get consensus where we can.'‘My role in taking on this chief executive group lead role is looking at how we co-ordinate best practice and learning.'And Stephenson is keen that any learnings for councils going though reorganisation now are shared with those currently free of the process.‘My focus, building on all the good work Trevor [Holden] has done [as chair], is how we really take that to the next level through strong collaboration.'And, with representatives from across the English regions on its board, the LCN is buoyed by the opportunity reorganisation has provided for meaningful collaboration.‘We've always talked about collaboration,' says Stephenson. ‘This is the time, and LCN is a really good vehicle to do this.'

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LOCAL COUNCILS NETWORK

Looking out for the local

By Paul Marinko | 27 May 2026

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