Building the new council
Leading through Local Government Reorganisation.
A day for leaders and members living through reorganisation: from why it happens, through culture and people, to vesting day and beyond.
- Level
- Immerse
- Learning time
- 9 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £249
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders and members in councils facing LGR
Overview
A new council is built twice, once on paper and once in people. Building the new council is for leaders and members living through local government reorganisation. It starts with why organisations reorganise and English reorganisation as it stood in September 2026, then follows Huish and Milliner's From District into Unitary and Avanti's five phases of transition. Culture, identity and merger syndrome, Bridges on transition, top teams and political leadership, organisational design and target operating models are explored alongside resistance, communication and psychological safety. Vesting day and beyond, with capstone cases from Tri-borough, Northamptonshire and the new unitaries of Cornwall, Dorset and others, complete the day.
Aims
This programme aims to help leaders and members lead reorganisation in a way that builds a new council people can believe in, not just a new structure. It develops the strategic, political and human judgement needed to move from shadow arrangements to vesting day and beyond, while sustaining services, culture and trust through the transition.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain the drivers, policy context and phases of local government reorganisation, and where your council currently sits in the transition.
- Plan for the cultural, identity and people dimensions of structural change, including resistance, communication and psychological safety through uncertainty.
- Lead with political and managerial colleagues to design and embed a new council that realises benefits beyond vesting day.
What you'll develop
By the end of this Immerse, you will be able to:
- Explain the five drivers of structural change and what the National Audit Office evidence says about whether reorganisations deliver.
- Describe Huish and Milliner's five phases of transition from district into unitary and the leadership demands of each.
- Explain why the political and managerial top teams must work as one, and the distinct roles of members, officers and statutory officers.
- Analyse a real case of structural change through the lenses of drivers, model, people, politics and benefits.
- Explain Chandler's finding that structure follows strategy and identify when a proposed reorganisation reverses that sequence.
- Explain what psychological safety is and is not, and how it combines with high standards to create a learning zone.
- Explain how people make sense of change sideways, and why middle managers act as translators rather than relay stations.
- Distinguish adaptability from resilience and explain why neither can substitute for the other.
Built from 7 parts.
9 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01From district to unitaryLocal government reorganisation in EnglandBitesize · Leading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services3 modules
- 02Keeping people with youCulture and leadership in structural changeBitesize · Leading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services2 modules
- 03Vesting day and beyondVesting day, benefits realisation and embeddingBitesize · Leading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services2 modules
- 04Shaping the organisationOrganisation design and target operating modelsBitesize · Strategic Thinking2 modules
- 05Trust at the heartCulture change, mergers and psychological safetyBitesize · Culture in Organisations2 modules
- 06The human side of changeResistance to change and communicating changeBitesize · Leading through Change and Conflict2 modules
- 07Holding others through hard timesLeading teams through adversity and changeBitesize · Resilience, Wellbeing and Adaptability2 modules