Changing places, not just boundaries: what’s missing from the LGR announcement

As the dust starts to settle following last week’s government announcement on reorganisation, Local Partnerships’ Chief Executive Adele Gritten says better services, stronger places and sustainable growth are the true test of delivery.

This article was originally published on The MJ

Last week’s announcement about local government reorganisation provided some clarity, but not a national restart. Ministers are ‘minded’ to proceed in five areas: Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and East Sussex and Brighton & Hove. These are provisional decisions, subject to at least three weeks of representations, not final approval.

For the remaining 15 areas, uncertainty continues. The revised timetable keeps elections on existing boundaries in May 2027, with shadow council elections in May 2028 and new councils in April 2029. As LGIU’s analysis highlights, restarting programmes after teams have stood down carries real costs: lost capacity, disrupted relationships and depleted confidence.

What should reorganisation achieve as devolution accelerates? Effective governance depends not on organisational charts or boundaries, but on institutions’ clarity, capacity and capability to deliver for their places. Work by Local Partnerships with Localis and LGIU has highlighted this consistent theme.

The Budget made that test more urgent. The Fiscal Devolution Roadmap confirms that Mayoral Strategic Authorities will receive a 20% share of business rates from April 2027, while local authorities’ share will increase to at least 70% in the coming years. The intention is for business rates to become a fully locally retained tax by the end of the decade. The roadmap also confirms income tax assignment for Mayoral Strategic Authorities from 2028. These are significant prospective changes to the funding model, though clearly not an immediate solution to council financial pressures.

Effective governance depends not on organisational charts or boundaries, but on institutions’ clarity, capacity and capability to deliver for their places.

The housing and regeneration commitments make the delivery challenge concrete: £1.5bn for 10,000 homes, prioritising Social Rent and council housing, bringing programme investment above £40bn over 10 years. Preferential council housebuilding borrowing rates continue for another year. The £125m Derelict Buildings Fund, within the £210m Community Assets Programme, is set to help 60 English councils bring vacant buildings back into use.

But investment powers and funding only translate into growth when places can develop credible projects, assess risk, assemble delivery partnerships and manage investment over time and as part of a wider, more coherent whole. Tried and tested skillsets, at the scale required to do this well, are already in short supply.

So, devolution is advancing while much of LGR remains unresolved. Their timetables may diverge; their operating models cannot. Building the capability to deliver means agreeing how councils and combined authorities will work together, not simply strengthening each institution separately. Combined authorities need effective councils as partners, not institutions distracted by prolonged uncertainty. Nor should growth programmes wait for every boundary question to be settled.

Combined authorities need effective councils as partners, not institutions distracted by prolonged uncertainty.

A corporate group offers a useful analogy for complementary roles, not ownership or democratic hierarchy. The parent or group company sets ambition, directs investment and enables its businesses to deliver. Combined authorities should play that strategic role regionally: setting direction, unlocking funding and aligning investment. Councils are the delivery businesses in this analogy, rooted in their places and turning ambition into homes, regeneration and better services. Councils retain their democratic mandates. Regional ambition needs local delivery; local delivery needs regional backing.

Wales offers useful lessons through its regional collaboration structures, including Corporate Joint Committees working across economic development, transport and strategic planning. The constitutional context differs, but the principle travels: complementary institutions should operate at the scale their functions require, while preserving local accountability.

Scale must therefore serve capability, not become an end in itself. That means designing financial management, commercial expertise, data and programme delivery alongside new structures, with clear agreement on who develops projects, who invests, who carries risk and who answers to residents. Fiscal devolution raises the stakes for that clarity; it does not remove the need for scrutiny or financial discipline.

Restructuring or rewiring is not in itself transformation. The forthcoming Rewiring the State delivery plan should connect the agendas through three practical commitments: clear criteria and decision dates for unresolved areas; realistic transition and capability funding; and explicit responsibilities and accountabilities across councils and strategic authorities, both horizontally and vertically. This is a matrix management challenge: making those relationships work in practice.

Doing this all right and in genuine partnership should mean stronger foundations for housing, infrastructure and public services, with clear ownership of the benefits and a realistic account of the resources required. Otherwise, we risk completing corporate-style transactions – mergers, demergers and the creation of new parent-group structures – while missing the bigger purpose of reform.

These are new powers and new structures, and we are only at the beginning of their implementation. The question is not simply whether or how we redraw the map, but whether reform changes what happens on it. Better services, stronger places and sustainable growth are the true test of delivery.

Read more about Local Partnerships’ LGR support on our LGR webpage

This article was originally published on The MJ