‘Beware of experts.' It is not just the battle cry of Brexiteers, but some serious advice from an experienced council chief executive when it comes to reorganisation. Former Northamptonshire CC commissioner and chief executive Theresa Grant took the failing authority through reorganisation after its financial collapse – during Covid.

As many councils scramble towards reorganisation at a breakneck pace, she warns against the snakeoil-sale consultancies aiming to make a fast buck out of uncertainty.

Grant is speaking to a webinar hosted by Penna, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and The MJ on learning from past reorganisation. In her straight-talking style, she warns: ‘There's a lot of talent out there, but there's also a lot of fakes.'

As part of the process of bringing together eight councils that ‘didn't exactly love each other' Northamptonshire created a programme of ‘change champions' across all the authorities at all levels of seniority.

There is, she says, no need to reinvent the wheel, or repeat the past mistakes of local government reorganisation (LGR). There are a lot of councils that have been through reorganisation in recent years – which was not the case when Dorset was reorganised six years ago (see box) – and there are a lot of in-house skills to be harnessed.

‘One of the first things I did,' Grant explains, ‘was a skills assessment and also a willingness assessment. Some people saw it as a fantastic opportunity.'

Just delivering a new organisation that ‘matches services together' is not enough, Grant says. ‘Deliver a transformed organisation. If you go into the new organisation safe and legal without a transformation programme that's well advanced and already delivering, you will never get it off the ground.'

Northamptonshire went for ‘safe and legal plus… and the "plus" was transformation,' she explains. It has to start from the beginning, otherwise people are exhausted and expecting everything to settle down once the new organisation goes live. If you start a transformation programme then, you are ‘asking for trouble' the veteran chief claims.

As part of the process of bringing together eight councils that ‘didn't exactly love each other' Northamptonshire created a programme of ‘change champions' across all the authorities at all levels of seniority.

‘We had a target of 12 change champions from each authority,' Grant explains. ‘We ended up with half the workforce… they created events themselves.'

Grant also had to ask authorities that did not want reorganisation to fund it. ‘So you have to show people what is in it for them,' she says. ‘What's in it for them as a politician is hugely important. Will this get them elected?... Will the workforce come behind it and can the public understand what you are trying to achieve?'

It is, she says, about winning hearts and minds.

ax Wide, an associate at the Leadership Centre, says in previous reorganisations, people felt ‘they hadn't really thought about redesign and transformation early enough. As a consequence of that, trying to mash together old systems… will almost certainly cost you more money.'

He warns there is a danger that people will stop doing transformation and ‘wait and see what happens'. Instead, they should be doing the opposite – doubling down on getting things right.

our processes are a mess and you have let them drift, it will take the successor authority much longer to get to a place where it could actually deliver improvements and savings.'

There is, he suggests, a wider transformation process going on: ‘The goal of this is not LGR. The goal is public service reform. The goal is getting to a more sustainable model for the whole public sector and LGR is just a staging post on the journey, it's not the journey itself.'

Cambridgeshire CC chief executive Stephen Moir tells the webinar the sector is no stranger to transformation. ‘Local government is never static,' he says. ‘It's always changing. It's always evolving. It's always adapting.'

Reform is, he suggests, ‘the fundamental job of leaders'. He says: ‘Don't underestimate the importance of communication. If you've got nothing to say, tell people you've got nothing to say. But for God's sake, don't let them make up their own answers.'

He believes in storytelling, creating a narrative to help staff, politicians and residents understand what you are trying to achieve. ‘We need to make sure we create a positive legacy for whatever comes next,' Moir says. ‘Focus on continuing to deliver well.'

Leading the organisation will also mean ‘modelling good behaviour' from the top down – and ‘don't panic'. His authority received reorganisation as a surprise Christmas present and as a result it is ‘building the plane as we're flying it'. Straining the metaphor further, he tells his leadership team they have to ‘put your own oxygen mask on first'.

Theresa Grant agrees that communication is key – particularly for politicians. ‘Unless you give them a good story to tell, a good business case that offers something to residents, they won't get elected. It has to be something that appeals to the customers and delivers good outcomes.'

While the focus is on organisational structures, the outcomes – and the staff – are often neglected. Max Wide says: ‘By the time you get to vesting day people are….so disturbed and so traumatised that there is a real leadership task about piecing that back together.'

It is not the only workforce challenge. CIPFA chief operating officer, Anna Blackman, points to the existing recruitment difficulties in the sector. With several roles – particularly finance – proving hard to fill, Blackman says: ‘LGR gives us a significant moment to really think about what do we want going forward. How do we build something that is really slick and efficient and the best use of resources?

‘How are we attracting and recruiting staff and how are we developing them?'

Broadland and South Norfolk councils' managing director Trevor Holden agrees people are important – and without the right staff, with a positive mindset ‘we will deliver none of it'.

Preparing people for the emotional journey of losing their organisation and potentially their job will be key, he says, but ‘they are all starting in different places'.

For some staff, it will be a chance for retirement and for others it will be a career opportunity. He warns: ‘Don't underestimate the level of commitment your people have to your organisation. You have to navigate that, to say, "we are going through change to the organisation that I asked you to be invested in". The mission of local government is still there.

‘We need to get them to a place where they understand what is going on, but also why they want to be part of it.'

‘Far from being concerned we are going to make lots of people redundant, we should be concerned about "have we got the right people with the right skills?".

And that may require some bolstering. Stephen Moir suggests: ‘Most authorities will have taken huge cost reductions out of corporate services over the years for good reason, but we are in a different space now, where we're having to go through change. You need to bolster the corporate centre.'

Finally, Theresa Grant reiterates her warning: ‘Beware the experts.'

That goes for staff too. There is, she says, going to be demand for talent. ‘If [a position] is difficult to fill, don't just settle for second best. Do your homework and don't take anyone on face value because it's your future and your organisation's future you are investing in. Those people can make it sink or swim. Be careful and watch out for the experts.'

Dorset and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole

Dorset was reorganised in 2019, creating two new unitaries – Dorset and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole – out of the existing county, districts and unitaries.

Aidan Dunn, executive director for corporate development at Dorset says they saved around £10m, but the transformation journey is still underway. One of the mantras, he suggests, is ‘what are you trying to achieve?'

He has six learning points to offer:

• Bring staff together from across organisations to co-create
• Consider where you staff are – do they want to stay or go? The difficulty comes from managing those who wanted to go but did not
• When staff are battered and bruised, how do you manage your own energy and enthusiasm to motivate them?
• Some staff's roles will not change – maybe you need to bring them in so they feel different
• When you are busy with reorganisation, do not take your eye off the ball on the high spending areas
• Knowledge retention is crucial

Finally, he issues a stark warning over terms and conditions – and equal pay. ‘Six years on, we are still grappling with that. We have colleagues working on bin collection who get paid different rates and [have] different annual leave entitlements.'

His colleague, Jonathan Mair, is director of legal and democratic services at Dorset. He says he has a ‘hint of jealousy' for those who are embarking on an LGR journey now. When Dorset reorganised, there was very little recent good practice.

He recalls a ‘real shock' when the outgoing councils were asked by the Government if they wanted to be a ‘continuing authority' or a ‘new authority'. They chose the latter.

‘I can't overestimate for us the benefits of that newness and sense of renewal that we got,' he says. ‘Instead of having two completely distinct sets of staff, one lot who were continuing in their organisation and others who were coming from abolished organisations, we really were all in it together.

‘That really helped build the one team approach.'

And then there is the leadership – with a plethora of chief executives creating a single entity. When a substantive chief was appointed, he says: ‘Suddenly people are able to coalesce and we saw real step change and progress… so the earlier you can do that, the better.'

And when it comes to ‘safe and legal', it is important, but ‘you've got to transform as well. If you get it right, that gives you the space for transformation,' but he adds, ‘get it wrong at your peril.'

The big lesson for us was about culture,' he says. ‘You have to create the culture that you want and you can't let it be the culture of the preceding councils.' And, he adds: ‘You have to programme manage the hell out of it.'

He warns that people fear change. ‘People get stressed when they are not in control.'

He describes the 10-80-10 rule: ‘Ten per cent of staff embrace the new direction; 80% go along with it and the final 10% say: "Over my dead body".' Farrant adds: ‘Deal with that last 10% because you can't have people blocking it.'

Finally, he says: ‘We pretend you can do this on this year's revenue budget and it simply doesn't work because the cost of change is huge.

‘There is a real ask of Government. There should be an ability to give four to five years of funding that would just cover the cost of change.'