Local government reorganisation isn’t just about structures. It’s about policies. Hundreds of them.
When councils merge, every decision, process, and document has to be reviewed, aligned, or rewritten. Not on day one, thankfully, but this mass re-write includes policies for everything from bin collections and council tax discounts to safeguarding, procurement, and recruitment. On day one of a new council, you need certain policies in place to function legally and operationally. The way those policies are built, and how decisions are made, sets the tone for the organisation you’re about to become.
But do your managers know what good policy is, and do you have the capacity to do this?
The same services, 300 different ways
Across England, around 300 councils deliver broadly the same services in 300 different ways. If you compare their policies side by side, as I’ve done many times, you’ll find huge variations in structure, language, eligibility, and emphasis. Even where legislation is identical, the interpretation isn’t. One authority’s “support” policy is another’s “enforcement” policy. That creates inconsistency for residents, inefficiency for officers, and a system that’s harder to navigate and harder to defend.
LGR presents a rare opportunity to challenge that. Instead of stitching together legacy policies, new councils can ask: What should our principles be? What outcomes do we want to drive? That’s the foundation of better policy.
Legacy systems and justification bias
Every merging organisation brings its own history, habits, and assumptions. Officers arrive with an attachment to “how we’ve always done it”, often believing their version is the most logical. This isn’t stubbornness, it’s psychology.
We all carry policy biases and this one is system justification: the tendency to defend the familiar, even when change is rational or necessary. For councils going through LGR, system justification is going to be the elephant in every room.
Recognising this bias is essential. Without it, policy integration becomes a tug-of-war between past systems rather than a collaborative design process for the future.
Building policy under pressure
LGR is creating an environment of huge personal and professional uncertainty. Staff are being regraded, teams restructured, leadership redefined. It’s not the best atmosphere for collaboration. Competing for jobs while trying to co-write shared policy can make even simple decisions feel emotionally loaded.
Learning to recognise our own policy biases, understanding policy first principles, and producing good policy will help deliver policy that works, boost credibility and relationships with the new council, and give your staff essential skills needed in the new council job market.
A chance to rebuild from the ground up
Despite the challenge, this is a moment of real opportunity. Few organisations ever get the chance to build their policy framework from scratch. LGR councils can decide what kind of relationship they want with residents, what tone their communications will strike, and how fairness and transparency will be embedded across every decision.
But, honestly? this is all aspirational management blog-speak I’ve written for LinkedIn – the reality is your staff need help to get this done. They are anxious about working with new people, new rules, new services and this isn’t the environment for good policymaking.
The bottom line
Local government reorganisation will be messy. But good policy is what makes it functional. It’s the difference between a smooth transition and years of confusion. By investing time and thought in the policy foundations now, new councils can build something clearer, fairer, and better.