When LGR becomes a reality

Managing the impact of reorganisation on staff

Helen Blake, assistant director – customer and digital, Westmorland and Furness Council

You can’t underestimate the scale of change and emotional toll on your wellbeing and that of your team that comes with LGR. Having reached year three of leadership for a newly formed unitary authority, here Helen Blake discusses her experiences and offers advice on managing the transition from a culture and people perspective.

Where are you along your LGR journey?

The final decision on geography came in July 2021 with seven authorities in Cumbria becoming two new councils. Our vesting day was 1 April 2023. Now, almost three years in and we’re still working through change management, but there is finally a sense of growing momentum and tangible progress. It’s been a long journey to get to this point, and you just can’t underestimate how relentless and emotive this rollercoaster ride is going to be.

How did people adjust as you prepared for the new structure?

When you hear that the decision on LGR has been made, it’s so far into the future that it doesn’t quite feel real. I had to get on with my day job, but at the same time I had to start considering how to dismantle the services that I had worked for so long to develop and grow. Naturally, this was quite difficult, and I was quite resistant at first. But then I had a moment when the penny dropped and I realised that there was no point in fighting it, the decision had been made. I needed to focus instead on getting everything ready for day one.

That moment of realisation is going to be different for everyone, and each service transition is going to move at a different speed. Yes, there will be lots of communications and updates throughout the preparation period, and you’ll work hard to speak as ‘one council’ under the new brand from early on, but those moments of realisation that everything is changing – that the council you’ve been working for to this point will no longer exist – only really hit people when they start to see the direct impact on their day-to-day work.

You’re going to have to work with uncertainty about what the future holds and even compete with people for new roles. During the preparations for LGR, different authorities and individuals put forward opposing ideas about the best ways of doing things. You need to listen and understand these different perspectives as they will all have pros and cons. It’s a very challenging people management environment, so it’s important to go into it knowing that you’ve got to work together through ambiguity and that everyone is going to handle that differently.

What’s the best advice for councils entering that preparatory period?

Do as much housekeeping as early as you can. Think about what you would need if you were doing a full service review. Baselining should include staffing structures, FTE numbers, what policies, contracts, procedures, systems and processes are in place.

At one point in the run up to Vesting Day, we did a SWOT analysis of the current approach to services, but with hindsight that was a bit early in the process since we weren’t in any position to be looking at service improvements. Everything must focus on getting ready for day one – what do you need to do to get it over the line?

There is a real tension between wanting to hang onto the past and trying to create something new. Some people can become defensive when their way of doing things starts to get questioned or dismantled. Other people love the chance to start afresh. I found some things needed to change that weren’t necessarily wrong before, but they didn’t serve the new structure and direction of travel.

It’s important to encourage an open mindset and put all preconceived ideas aside. Remember that everyone is just trying to do their best, so it’s about listening to each other and staying focused on the wider objectives.

What was your experience of vesting day?

In many respects, day one is expected to run as ‘business as usual’ for residents. You put on a veneer for the public so that they come through a single front door, but then immediately they are directed out to the legacy teams and arrangements. The chances are that most services will keep running exactly as they had been doing the day before, because the consolidation or disaggregation will happen down the line, depending on things like contracts expiring or the ease with which services can or cannot be aggregated.

But at the same time, behind this veneer, all the rules inside the council have changed – it’s a new council. Some of the basics take a long time to get in place. We couldn’t see each other’s diaries. There wasn’t clarity on budgets or staffing structures. We had lots of people in new roles all at once. Each team will be working to a different timeline of change and have their own shop to get in order, so it’s difficult to work across functions, which can be very frustrating.

What happens next?

The layer upon layer of change that is happening – some fast, some really slow – some of us wanting to move faster and others wanting to slow down – it’s not like anything I’ve ever experienced before. It feels like all the cards have been thrown up in the air and you’re just not sure how they are going to land.

You need to constantly stay in touch using the same tactics that you would use if there was some sort of major incident unfolding. You’re not in crisis, as such, but you are in such flux that you must stay tight. It’s all the normal change management approaches, but because there are so many elements to it you need to be very agile.

We had daily stand-up meetings with managers and broke tasks down into short, manageable timeframes. We would look just one month ahead at a time and ask ourselves, ‘what will better feel like one month from now?’ And then made sure we made it happen. For the longer view, think about your sequencing, interdependencies, the scale of change that’s needed and realistic timescales. You can’t try and climb every mountain all at once.

Meanwhile, make time without agendas to ask how people are feeling and understand what’s coming up. Don’t underestimate the level of impact this has on your personal wellbeing or on others. It’s important to prioritize self-care.

When does the turn happen, from transition to transformation?

Year one is all about baselining, maintaining business as usual (BAU) in a non-BAU setting, consolidating policies, processes and systems where possible and making sure that your strategic roadmap is in motion.

It’s only when you get into years two and three that you can start to properly embed one way of working, one set of terms and conditions, and consolidated services start to take shape. It’s at this point where you start to see improvements in efficiency and customer journeys and you’re also better at tracking KPIs. For some staff, they may only really start to experience significant change at the point restructures and reshaping of services are taking place and impacting them directly.

Three years in and I’ve now restructured customer services, I’ve got a new digital platform moving into implementation, and we are finally doing work that’s demonstrating tangible improvements and benefits.

We’ve been able to consolidate four systems into one, and that’s a huge success. Getting back to a stable environment is a big success. With a single process, single team and single system for complaints or FOIs, we are on track with our performance targets.

It’s been really important to target small goals along the way to gain a sense of satisfaction, and these are now accumulating into much bigger changes that are improving ways of working. I can’t wait to now move into transformational work which awaits us.

To learn more about how we can support your technology requirements throughout the LGR transition and transformation journey, get in touch here. Reduce risk, ensure service continuity and unlock new operating models with Civica.