From reorganisation to vesting day
LGR, vesting day, operating models and culture.
A half day on local government reorganisation: why organisations reorganise, LGR in 2026, Avanti's five phases, culture and identity, top teams, vesting day, devolution legislation and target operating models.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 5 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £129
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
Chief officers, managers and councillors in English councils facing reorganisation, and leaders of merging public bodies
Overview
Local government reorganisation reshapes services, careers and identities. This first half of Building the new council opens with five drivers of structural change, the National Audit Office evidence, and English reorganisation as it stood in September 2026, contrasted with Wales. Avanti's five phases from district into unitary follow, then culture and identity through Mirvis and Marks's merger syndrome, William Bridges and Edgar Schein, and top teams through Dr. Jonathan Huish's research in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Vesting day brings six lessons from new unitaries and a capstone on Tri-borough, Northamptonshire and Somerset. To finish, it takes up the 2026 devolution Act and target operating models tied to Rumelt's kernel.
Aims
This programme aims to help leaders and members carry reorganisation without losing the people inside it: planning each phase of transition, keeping staff whole through a transfer, building a top team that works as one, and turning strategy into an operating model that delivers real benefits after vesting day.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Plan actions for yourself and your team across Avanti's five phases of transition, including managing dual delivery without waiting for certainty.
- Apply Bridges' distinction between change and transition, and the main TUPE protections, to keep people whole through a staff transfer.
- Use the five elements of a Target Operating Model and four pressure tests to check that a new design stays tied to its strategy.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Explain the five drivers of structural change and what the National Audit Office evidence says about whether reorganisations deliver.
- Describe the types of local authority in England and the main steps in the reorganisation programme up to the September 2026 pause.
- Describe Huish and Milliner's five phases of transition from district into unitary and the leadership demands of each.
- Identify the signs of merger syndrome and the leadership responses that reduce it.
- Explain Huish and Milliner's six lessons and why middle managers, as Balogun and Johnson found, are the pivot point of structural change.
- Analyse a real case of structural change through the lenses of drivers, model, people, politics and benefits.
- Distinguish what new legislation mandates from what it leaves open to local choice and what is easily missed.
- Explain Chandler's finding that structure follows strategy and identify when a proposed reorganisation reverses that sequence.
Built from 9 modules.
5 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01Foundations: Why Organisations ReorganiseLeading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services35 min
- 02English Local Government Reorganisation in 2026Leading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services37 min
- 03From District into Unitary: Avanti's Five PhasesLeading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services35 min
- 04Culture, Identity and People through Structural ChangeLeading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services36 min
- 05Top Teams and Political Leadership through ReorganisationLeading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services36 min
- 06Vesting Day and Beyond: Embedding, Benefits and LearningLeading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services36 min
- 07Applied Case Studies: CapstoneLeading through Reorganisation, Mergers and Shared Services40 min
- 08Strategy in the Public Realm: The Reorganising StateStrategic Thinking37 min
- 09From Strategy to Structure: Organisational Design and Target Operating ModelsStrategic Thinking36 min