First published in The Minicipal Journal on 8 April 2026.

For many councils navigating the current wave of local government reorganisation, time may be passing faster than they appreciate. Dmitrije Sirovica and Graham Farrant explain what local authorities should be doing to prepare now.

Between the legal apparatus being built by the government to usher in local government reorganisation and a lived experience of what this transition demands, there is an uncomfortable but necessary message for local authorities.

That is, the scale of what lies ahead is being underestimated, and the window to act is narrower than it appears.

New unitary authorities need to be operational from 1 April 2028, with elections in May 2027. That leaves just over two years, which can seem like a reasonable runway. It is not.

While some may expect the change in stance by government regarding the delay to some local elections will slow things down, especially with decisions on only five areas so far having been made, local government secretary Steve Reed said he remains committed to this timetable.

The complexity is real

When Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP) was established in 2019, the configuration – two existing unitaries, one district council and part of a county council – generated a level of organisational intricacy that few would have fully anticipated.

To get ahead of it, 70 separate workstreams were established in preparation for vesting day. That figure consistently surprises people. Yet in any given area, local authorities may collectively be responsible for up to 500 separate services, every one of which demands consideration.

Take something as seemingly straightforward as refuse collection. Across the BCP predecessor authorities, some services were in-house, others outsourced; recycling provision varied; food waste arrangements differed, even the size and cost of green waste bins was not consistent.

Mapping what existed was itself a significant undertaking, and the harder question of what the new council could actually afford came after that. Residents notice when services change. You have to get to grips with this from the outset.

The consistent pattern we observe across areas now preparing for reorganisation is a gap between the scale of the task and the resource being allocated to it. Programme management is not a support function in this process, it is central to it and needs to be treated as such from day one.

The financial reality check

The expectation most urgently in need of recalibration is the financial one. Reorganisation does generate savings via reduced member allowances, workforce rationalisation and economies of scale. But those savings are not immediate, and they do not come free.

BCP's experience is instructive: the council achieved annual savings of around £25m following reorganisation, but had invested approximately £42m in upfront transformation costs, covering system upgrades and external advisory fees.

Workforce savings can similarly be offset, at least initially, by redundancy costs. Councils should be having honest conversations with members and officers about this sequencing now, before expectations run ahead of reality.

The equal pay problem nobody is talking about

If there is one issue that deserves more attention than it is currently receiving, it is the challenge of harmonising pay and reward. Across different authorities, even where job titles look the same, the actual functions performed can differ considerably because authorities divide responsibilities in different ways for historical and organisational reasons.

When multiple authorities come together, those differences crystallise into complex questions about pay, terms and conditions, and critically, equal pay exposure.

This was something BCP could have got to grips with sooner in the process. Differential redundancy terms affect not only the total cost of workforce rationalisation, but also which employees volunteer for redundancy – producing outcomes that are neither planned nor desired. The groundwork on terms and conditions across all predecessor authorities needs to begin immediately.

What good preparation looks like

The priorities for councils are clear – map your services now.

Do not wait for government to confirm boundaries before cataloguing how services are delivered and what contractual arrangements are in place. Understand what procurement implications flow from aggregating or disaggregating those contracts.

Invest in programme management at real scale. And think ahead on governance: arrangements for both the transitional period and vesting day itself cannot be left to the final straight.

The first year of a new unitary authority will be determined, to a very significant degree, by what happens before vesting day. The authorities that thrive will be those that treated this preparation window not as breathing space, but as a deadline.

For councils that have not yet begun to prepare in earnest: it is, quite literally, later than you think.

Dmitrije Sirovica is a partner in the government team at law firm Browne Jacobson. Graham Farrant was the first chief executive of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council following the establishment of the unitary authority in 2019, and is now a non-executive director at Browne Jacobson.