Justin Galliford
Local government reform is gathering pace, and councils are under significant pressure to make new structures work from day one. Creating larger unitary authorities will demand time, money and sustained leadership focus. Combined with ongoing pressures in adult and children’s services, the potential need for structural separation, and the challenge of making effective use of a larger estate, the result is a clear squeeze on organisational capacity.
That pressure will be felt particularly acutely in frontline services. Waste, facilities management and ICES cannot simply be brought together and expected to deliver immediate benefits. Different delivery models, separate workforces, fleets, depots and warehouses all need to be aligned before efficiencies can be realised at scale.
The risk is that vesting day becomes primarily an exercise in being safe and legal. If that happens, reform may protect continuity but fall short of meaningful improvement. That would be a missed opportunity. Reorganisation should do more than deliver compliance; it should create the conditions to redesign frontline services, raise performance and secure long-term efficiency.
This helps explain the growing interest in the LATCo model. A local authority trading company can give councils the flexibility to integrate and rationalise services more effectively, while also supporting a more commercial approach to investment, innovation and delivery. The challenge, however, is that establishing a LATCo from scratch during a period of intense change may be unrealistic for already stretched teams.
A partnership approach may therefore offer the most practical route forward. A joint venture with an established LATCo such as Norse Group can help new unitaries move beyond a narrow safe and legal focus and build real capacity for innovation. It combines commercial expertise with public service values, while a co-ownership model gives councils strong oversight and flexibility as future requirements evolve.
As LGR accelerates, councils will need to decide whether reform is simply about managing transition or about using change to improve services. In that context, the partnership LATCo model offers a credible route to ensuring innovation remains part of the agenda rather than becoming a casualty of reorganisation.
