In June I wrote that the people side of LGR couldn’t wait until 2028, because nobody can be expected to do their job well for years without knowing whether it will still exist at the end. Back then I put the wait at two to four years. Since then the latest MHCLG Q&A, published this week, has confirmed that, outside Surrey, new councils will go live on 1 April 2029, which puts the gap between the white paper and the new councils at well over four years.
Five areas now have ‘minded to’ decisions and the other fifteen should all know their outcome by early next year. If you work in one of those fifteen and ask what’s happening to your job, the answer is the same as it was in June, the only difference being that there’s now a date for when you might find out. That includes the people hired to run LGR programmes (and there are many of them), who now face the same wait as the colleagues they were brought in to help.
As such, many staff in the councils in question will find this a frustrating read, low on conclusive answers. Still, it’s a great effort by the LGA and MHCLG to answer some tough questions, and it will be very welcome for those who have been living with uncertainty since plans were put on hold in early September. The full Q&A is here.
One line in the Q&A gives a particularly useful steer. The fifteen areas still under review are asked to avoid work that assumes a particular outcome, while ‘decision-neutral’ work can carry on. Helping people through the wait is about as decision-neutral as it gets, and more essential than ever. A manager who can have an honest conversation about an uncertain future, a team that holds together under pressure and a person with the confidence to make their case in a new structure will all be useful whatever the final map looks like and whoever ends up running it.
I hope this clarity about the extended timeline will at the very least allow affected councils to restart some of the work they paused in September, on the understanding that things like staff professional development or transformation projects can’t be put on hold for years.
Councils can’t give their staff certainty about the map yet. What they can give is certainty about how people will be treated, kept informed and supported while it’s being drawn, and they can start on that today.
