Working around political revolts

Disrupter parties have gained control of a swathe of local authorities, a trend accelerated by May's local elections. As leadership teams and new administrations try to bed in, what are the best ways to grow relationships and avoid fallouts?Challenger parties such as Reform UK on the right and the Greens made substantial gains, with Reform building further on its May 2025 performance to achieve outright control of 24 councils in England. It has also become the largest party with no overall majority in a further 10 councils. The Greens now control five councils and are the largest single party in eight others.What lessons can senior local government experts share about how to operate successfully in this new world? Potentially divisive challenger party policies can be managed sensitively. One Reform-controlled administration did not want a Pride flag on the town hall due to a directive from the party's central leadership. But there was support for a staff event within the building.One piece of advice from a well-placed chief executive who has worked closely with Reform UK is to avoid the language of having battles. ‘This applies to every single administration you work for. We should be in the mindset of "how do we not have battles at all".Kilby adds that administrations should think twice about ditching a leadership team: ‘If they find the advice is not what they want, they have the right to deliver – if it is legal and appropriate – the policies they've been elected on. Administrations do make changes in the leadership of the officer corps.‘What we do is demonise Reform, but local government officers have a responsibility to treat everyone fairly.' One hard-won insight is to start laying a path to cooperation ahead of the elections. Chief executives should get politicians and officer colleagues ‘into the collaborative space and find out about the things you agree on'.Nick Kilby is executive chairman and co-founder of Cratus Communications. He says educating new administrations and explaining how local government works needs to take priority.He tells The MJ many of the new intake of councillors put themselves forward for seats due to anger on specific issues, never expecting to gain power. ‘Yet they're now going to be the decision-makers on this complex web of services that local government provides.‘So, there's a process of educating that has to come first', he adds. ‘If the council don't understand their statutory obligations, then members and officers are going to be put in a very difficult position, and that's where members must understand they have to offer a balanced budget.‘They do have legal obligations to deliver some services, they cannot duck those, they cannot cut those.'Kilby adds that administrations should think twice about ditching a leadership team: ‘If they find the advice is not what they want, they have the right to deliver – if it is legal and appropriate – the policies they've been elected on. Administrations do make changes in the leadership of the officer corps.‘But if you want to move fast and you want to deliver change that you believe is to the benefit of everyone in the community, then bring the officers on board.'He concludes: ‘Debating it, discussing it, sharing it, and listening to their advice about how to deliver it is much faster than going through the recruitment for a whole new [leadership] team.'In May Havering LBC became the first London borough to be controlled by Reform UK. The council's chief executive Andrew Blake-Herbert says it's a question of building new working relationships, and bringing on board the 42 councillors out of 55 who are new to the role. He tells The MJ: ‘It doesn't 100% matter who the political group is. They've all got aspirations about doing the best and the right thing for the residents and businesses they serve and represent.'He adds: ‘There might be nuancing about how that's expressed and how it's delivered, but the important bit is building that understanding. So many of them are new and haven't been councillors before, which is a huge swing.'There are ‘steep learning curves for everybody', including officers, he continues. For councillors, it's about getting them up to speed on what the council does and how it operates – ‘and some of the bureaucracy associated with running a local authority in terms of the rules and regulations that need to be followed'. Officers need to learn about ‘how people work, how they want to work, and what their views of the council are coming in from outside'.Part of this involves sitting down with the cabinet and going through the details of council services, spending five full days with them spread over a few weeks following the annual general meeting.The result is a vision and aspiration for the first 100 days ‘built on their manifesto, about what they want to do and deliver for the borough, so they can go out there and very clearly communicate that to the residents and businesses about what's going to happen over their term'.‘Then obviously it's officers' responsibility to go away and make that happen for them, which is always the challenge'.The final word goes to the sector insider, whose unequivocal view is that the officer system in local and regional government needs to say to itself: ‘These people are here. The ballot box delivered them. If you stay, then make it work.'The Local Government Association offers tools and resources for councils facing change of control, no overall control and changes in leadership at www.local.gov.uk/our-support/councillor-and-officer-development/changes-political-leadership

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POLICY AND POLITICS

Working around political revolts

By Ann McGauran | 08 July 2026

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