Managing an LGR programme: A practical guide for PMO teams

Summary

Many councils in England are currently navigating the complex transition demanded by Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). This LGIU and Local Partnerships guide supports LGR programme teams to set up and run an effective LGR programme, drawing on lived experience across Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) and non-DPP areas.

It is grounded in what has worked in practice across multiple programmes, and where common difficulties have emerged, via practical guidance on the decisions that matter most: standing up a joint, collaborative Programme Management Office (PMO), managing resourcing tensions between programme and business-as-usual (BAU), and navigating legacy transformation alongside new programme demands.

There is no single blueprint for LGR, but there is a growing body of experience, practice and collective learning that can help councils avoid common pitfalls and move more confidently through the journey ahead.

Developing a joint, collaborative, integrated PMO

A PMO serves as the central function for coordinating LGR. It provides the governance, oversight, programme management and assurance needed to ensure that newly created authorities are safe, legal and operational on vesting day, while also establishing the foundations for longer-term transformation. 

Across both sessions, participants consistently described the PMO as far more than a programme administration function. It was viewed as the mechanism through which participating authorities could develop shared ownership of LGR while continuing to operate as separate organisations until vesting day. While local structures varied, there was remarkable consistency in the principles that participants felt were most important when establishing an effective joint PMO. 

All participants favoured establishing a single programme structure across participating authorities, rather than multiple PMOs operating independently. Integration was not solely about pooling resources; it meant creating a shared programme architecture, common governance arrangements and collective accountability for delivery. 

“Convening around what unites you rather than constantly reflecting on what divides you has been a really important part of how we started and how we’ve continued to develop this joint collaborative PMO.”

A recurring theme was that officers working within the PMO needed to think beyond the organisations from which they had been seconded:

“In the PMO, we are the new organisations. That’s our mentality and that’s who we’re working for.”

An integrated PMO does not necessarily mean a wholly centralised programme. Several areas described hybrid models, combining a central LGR PMO with local transition arrangements within participating authorities:

“I’ve got to close down my council and transition into the new unitary. So I have my own programme.”

The emerging lesson is that a single PMO should provide a shared framework for delivery whilst recognising that some activities remain inherently local.

On governance, participants emphasised visible strategic leadership, collective sponsorship from chief executives and strong links between programme decision-making and political leadership. Common features included a single strategic programme structure, programme boards bringing together senior representatives from participating authorities, and workstreams sponsored by senior officers. Several participants highlighted the benefit of using existing leadership structures ( hief executive groups, leader forums and partnership boards) wherever possible rather than creating new governance arrangements:

“We tried to tap into those as much as possible rather than setting up additional governance methods alongside.”

Programme leadership emerged as a distinct requirement from organisational leadership:

“Delivering LGR through a collaborative programme needs really strong programme leadership. It’s not the same as senior leadership… these are very complex programmes of change and you need somebody who understands that and who can run that and mobilise that effectively.”

Successful PMOs do not emerge fully formed; they evolve alongside the programme. The earliest phase typically involved a small function focused on coordination and relationship-building, often beginning before formal government decisions had been received:

“We started early with the chief executives pre-decision in terms of looking at what we could do together and that has really helped.”

As programmes moved closer to implementation, PMOs expanded through additional recruitment and more formal governance. Participants recognised that a further phase of evolution would be required during the shadow authority period, and that the PMO’s role would continue past vesting day itself:

“I’ve always talked about the whole LGR programme as a five-year programme and vesting day is the starting point really.”

The common lesson was not to attempt to resource the entire programme from day one, but to build incrementally in line with programme maturity.

Agreeing ways of working early was one of the strongest messages from participants: governance structures, leadership responsibilities, recruitment approaches, pooled funding principles, terminology, workstream structures and escalation processes.

“We reflected on how we wanted to work together and what was important to us and the outputs have been used to build our ways of working for the PMO as we’re standing it up.”

Not every structural decision needed to be taken immediately:

“There was never going to be any perfect ideal scenario for everybody.”

Where PMOs have struggled, three challenges have recurred: the risk of siloed working, maintaining a genuinely collective PMO where councils have very different levels of programme management capability, and clarity of roles when external support, delivery partners or specialist expertise are introduced. Finally, participants consistently reflected on how long it takes to build a genuinely collaborative programme:

“Getting everybody off the ground takes so much more time than you think.”

Lessons learned

Taken together, the discussions point towards a number of common features of effective PMOs at this stage of the LGR journey:

• a single programme structure across participating authorities.
• collective ownership and shared accountability.
• governance built around existing leadership arrangements wherever possible.
• phased development rather than a fully scaled PMO from day one.
• early agreement on behaviours, governance and resourcing principles.
• strong programme leadership capability.
• a focus on relationships as well as structures.
• recognition that vesting day is a milestone in a much longer transformation journey. 

Perhaps the strongest message from both learning exchanges was that a successful PMO is ultimately as much about culture as structure. 

“If we’re doing this properly, there needs to be that true collaborative feel to it.” 

Programme plans, governance diagrams and reporting arrangements all matter. But integrated PMOs are most successful when officers begin to think beyond individual organisations and focus instead on the future authorities they are collectively creating. 

Alignment with the LGR PMO Pathway Toolkit See the Toolkit’s Foundations section for the ‘Three R’s’ framework – role, responsibilities and remit – and Establish the LGR PMO for structural and hosting options that put these principles into practice. The Surrey, Essex and Kent case studies illustrating this section are gathered together in Section 5.

Managing legacy and existing transformation in the context of LGR

Nobody is entering LGR with a blank sheet of paper. Most authorities are simultaneously managing budget savings programmes, service redesign projects, digital transformation activity, capital investments and operating model reviews. Across both sessions, participants were clear that LGR does not replace these priorities but requires a systematic approach to deciding what should continue, change or stop:

“The analogy we keep using across our programme is packing up the house… it makes unpacking the boxes at the other side a lot easier.”

A recurring theme was the need to balance a “safe and legal” vesting day with not losing momentum on wider improvement activity:

“Safe and legal is non-negotiable.”

Simply preserving existing arrangements until vesting day would miss opportunities to prepare organisations for future change:

“We don’t want to enter into LGR, taking forward with us a big mess.”

The resulting approach could be described as ‘safe and legal plus’: ensuring continuity and legal compliance while preserving the ability to undertake more ambitious transformation after vesting day.

Several authorities have undertaken portfolio reviews examining existing programmes through an LGR lens, using ‘start, stop, pause, continue’ exercises and MoSCoW-style prioritisation (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have). Typical questions include whether a programme is required for statutory or regulatory reasons, whether it contributes to financial sustainability before vesting day, and whether it will make future integration easier or harder. The consensus was that councils should be prepared to stop activities as well as reprioritise them.

The same principles can be applied to LATCOs, joint ventures and traded services: does the model remain viable within future authority structures, and would delaying decisions create additional cost or risk? Digital and AI transformation featured prominently, with best practice being that initiatives are most valuable when they simplify future integration, improve resilience, reduce costs and create reusable foundations for successor authorities — deferring anything that depends on unknown future operating models.

On disaggregation, one participant cautioned against assuming existing structures should simply be recreated:

“The taxonomy is okay – that’s the things we should be delivering. How do we deliver them? How do we want to deliver them?”

The consistent advice was to understand demand, establish service baselines, design future services, determine operating models and allocate workforce and structures last.

A practical decision matrix

Question	Yes	No
Is it required for statutory, regulatory or inspection reasons?	Continue	Assess further
Does it deliver critical financial savings before vesting day?	Continue or accelerate	Assess further
Does it improve readiness for LGR?	Continue or absorb into LGR programme	Assess further
Will stopping it create future risks or costs?	Continue	Consider pause
Does it depend on future political decisions or operating models?	Consider delay until shadow authority phase	Continue assessment
Will it make future transformation harder?	Reconsider or redesign	Continue

Using this framework, programmes can broadly be categorised as:

• Continue – essential and beneficial regardless of LGR.
• Accelerate – delivers benefits before vesting day.
• Absorb – best managed within the LGR programme itself.
• Pause – valuable but dependent on future decisions.
• Abandon – no longer provides sufficient value in the context of future authorities. 

Successful councils are making deliberate decisions about legacy programmes, focusing on safe and legal readiness while protecting future opportunities for service redesign. They are baselining services before restructuring organisations and accepting that some decisions are best deferred until future authorities are established. Most importantly, they are treating vesting day as a staging point in a longer journey of transformation rather than its endpoint.

Alignment with the LGR PMO Pathway Toolkit The decision matrix above complements the baselining approach set out in the Toolkit’s Manage the delivery of LGR section – LGR Baselining: what to baseline, baselining data and baselining processes. Use the two together when assessing legacy programmes.

Maintaining business-as-usual capacity while delivering the LGR programme

Participants identified resourcing as one of the greatest risks to successful delivery. The people best equipped to deliver LGR are often the same people already carrying critical organisational responsibilities:

“A lot of my team is going to support LGR, which takes away the capacity.”

Programme structures can appear straightforward until councils begin identifying the specific people required:

“When you turn around and say, well, actually, to do that, we need someone from HR on a full-time basis. We need someone from comms on a full-time basis… that’s when people get really nervous.”

Several participants concluded that councils would ultimately have to reduce, reprioritise or stop some existing activity:

“There is no way on this planet that we can continue doing everything that we’re currently doing alongside LGR.”

Most authorities are adopting a combination of secondments, internal recruitment and external appointments. Secondment retains organisational knowledge and can be an important workforce development opportunity:

“A once-in-a-career lifetime kind of thing for people to get involved in something of this scale and nature.”

But moving experienced staff into programme roles simply transfers pressure elsewhere, and recruitment and backfill were consistently described as difficult:

“Even if you go out and advert and get interviews and then you’ve got notice periods, you’re not going to get someone in for at least four to six months realistically.”

External partners were seen as most valuable when they complemented existing capability rather than replaced it, with knowledge transfer repeatedly highlighted as important when commissioning support, so that skills remain within successor organisations after vesting day.

Non-poaching agreements were not discussed explicitly, but participants emphasised the importance of maintaining trust between partner authorities and avoiding competition for scarce programme management and corporate services skills; transparent, collaborative recruitment processes may matter as much as any formal agreement.

The human impact of LGR emerged repeatedly. Uncertainty about future structures, roles and reporting arrangements inevitably creates anxiety, particularly among middle managers, and some authorities are addressing this by creating pathways for staff to move into transformation and LGR-related roles – recognising that people delivering LGR may become future leaders within successor authorities.

Retention payments were not discussed directly, though concerns about retaining key skills were widespread. There is currently no nationally prescribed MHCLG retention payment scheme related to LGR; councils retain discretion to develop local arrangements where justified by workforce risk (see the Worcestershire case study in Section 5).

A strong point of consensus was that councils should avoid attempting to build a fully scaled programme organisation immediately:

“At the moment it’s only small, but we are looking to expand that capacity and capability as we hit decision.”

A recurring theme was the distinction between capacity and capability:

“There’s a lot of capability within the organisations that I feel like we’re just starting to understand better… we’ve got people that are great technical experts, but this is a new challenge that people are being asked to take forward… where do we even start?”

Participants favoured an iterative approach: establish a core programme function early, understand demands arising from implementation planning, and scale resource progressively. Finally, many resource implications ultimately require political awareness; officers can determine much of the operational detail, but decisions affecting strategic priorities or service expectations need political understanding and support.

Lessons learned

• Recognise the difference between capacity and capability
• Accept that not everything can continue unchanged alongside LGR
• Build programme capacity progressively rather than all at once
• Use a mix of secondments, recruitment and external support
• Pay attention to workforce engagement and uncertainty
• Plan for backfill early and realistically
• Identify and develop talent from within the organisation
• Maintain honest conversations with political leaders about capacity and delivery pressures

LGR is ultimately a people challenge as much as a programme challenge.

Alignment with the LGR PMO Pathway Toolkit These themes map directly onto the Toolkit’s Resourcing an LGR PMO section – understanding the resource required, addressing capacity through existing resource or commissioned support, and managing resources across the different stages of LGR.

Practical structures, governance tools and sources of support

As LGR programmes move into implementation, governance and assurance are becoming increasingly important. Participants emphasised the value of drawing on external experience as well as local expertise:

“We’re really grateful for these kinds of opportunities and support that both LGIU and Local Partnerships have given… just that reassurance that you’re not alone.”

One of the strongest points of consensus is the value of structuring activity through a matrix of enabling and service workstreams – organising “horizontal” enabling services (workforce, finance, digital, legal, procurement, assets and communications) separately from “vertical” service areas (children’s services, adults’ services, housing, place and communities). Workstreams should operate primarily as a delivery mechanism rather than as a blueprint for future organisational structures.

As programmes grow, councils need mechanisms to understand progress, identify risks and assess readiness. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has published implementation guidance covering transition arrangements, implementation bodies and staffing issues. The Local Government Association’s (LGA) guidance on LGR governance procedures highlights integrated reporting and consistent assurance, including financial guides developed with CIPFA for non-finance professionals.

Governance arrangements established through each Structural Changes Order will shape formal decision-making requirements. Common principles across successful programmes include clear decision-making pathways, defined officer and member roles, transparent reporting and consistent escalation routes for risks and issues. Participants generally favoured building on existing leadership forums and partnership arrangements wherever possible:

“We tried to tap into those as much as possible rather than setting up additional governance methods alongside.”

A consistent message from both the discussions and national guidance is that councils do not need to reinvent every process, governance arrangement or implementation tool themselves. PMOs now have access to the collective experience of a sector undergoing the most significant wave of local government reorganisation in a generation.

Alignment with the LGR PMO Pathway Toolkit This section summarises themes that the Toolkit sets out in full in Manage the delivery of LGR – including monitoring workstreams, governance and assurance, and risk and issue management – alongside the national resources listed in the Toolkit’s resource list.

What ‘good’ looks like: lessons from comparable programmes

There is no single blueprint for LGR. The programmes below differ significantly in geography, complexity and timescale, but taken together they demonstrate recurring themes: establishing a clear programme structure early; creating a single source of programme governance and assurance; balancing day-one readiness with longer-term transformation; investing in relationships and collaborative leadership; and building PMOs in phases rather than creating fully scaled structures from the outset.

Surrey: a structured framework for a two-unitary transition

Key source: Surrey LGR Hub, LGR Process and Implementation Plan (2025)

Following the Government’s decision to establish East Surrey Council and West Surrey Council, both going live on 1 April 2027, Surrey has established a single integrated programme supported by workstreams, common governance and a PMO drawing expertise from all participating councils. Its Annex 2 framework sets out agreed working principles – collaboration, trust, accountability, representation and respect for expertise – positioning the PMO as a trusted, programme-wide enabler.

North Yorkshire: a first-wave reference programme

Key source: North Yorkshire Council Implementation Plan

North Yorkshire Council became operational on 1 April 2023, replacing the former county council and 7 district and borough councils. The programme is notable for the distinction it drew between activities required for vesting day and the longer-term transformation that continued afterwards – a staged approach now standard practice. Subsequent reflections highlight the importance of maintaining local identity within larger organisations.

Cumbria: workforce and governance lessons from a two-unitary programme

Key source: Cumbria LGR Programme Closure Report (2023)

Cumbria’s programme created Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council, operational from 1 April 2023. Its closure report is valuable because it explicitly captures lessons learned, including a rigorous focus on defining what was genuinely required for a safe and legal day one: the programme initially identified more than 2,500 potential day-one requirements but reduced this to a much smaller critical set. Cumbria’s advice: embrace the change as soon as you can, accept you won’t have all the answers all the time, don’t underestimate the emotional impact on officers, and prioritise communications from the very start.

Greater Essex: a multi-council hybrid PMO

Key source: Newtrality, Greater Essex LGR: System-wide Proposal Development and Mobilisation (2025)

Greater Essex, involving 15 councils and multiple competing structural proposals, adopted a hybrid, system-wide PMO that draws on expertise and resources from participating councils while maintaining common governance, shared data and independent assurance. Key lessons include the importance of investing time in building relationships across a complex system, and the critical role of transparent governance in enabling pace, trust and collective ownership.

Kent and Medway: foundational programme design in a complex operating environment

Key source: Kent Interim Plan for Local Government Reorganisation (2025)

Kent and Medway focused on building a shared implementation architecture across 14 authorities before formal decisions on future structures had been made, agreeing design principles and ways of working early, and providing a framework that could evolve as requirements became clearer. The area’s size, strategic transport functions and border and asylum responsibilities create particular complexity; the final government decision was to establish four new unitary councils.

Norfolk: a relational and partnership-based approach

Key source: Future Norfolk programme (2026)

Norfolk’s programme, developed jointly by 6 councils under shared political and officer leadership, is notable for its emphasis on building trust across councils before formal programme structures were fully established, supported by external expertise while retaining local ownership. Norfolk demonstrates that successful programmes depend not only on the quality of governance arrangements but also on the quality of the relationships that underpin them.

Worcestershire: a targeted retention payment scheme

Key source: Worcestershire County Council, Retention Payments for Local Government Reorganisation (2025)

Worcestershire has introduced a discretionary retention payment scheme in response to LGR, designed to retain staff in roles where the loss of key corporate knowledge or specialist expertise would create significant risk. Payments are targeted rather than universal, applying only where there is a demonstrable risk of departure and difficulty recruiting a replacement, and are explicitly temporary and linked to the transition period.

Alignment with the LGR PMO Pathway Toolkit See the Toolkit’s own worked example, a case study for establishing an LGR PMO, alongside those above.

Conclusions

Local Government Reorganisation is often described as a structural exercise, but the experience shared through these learning exchanges suggests that it is equally a programme, workforce and leadership challenge. Across very different geographies, participants returned to a strikingly consistent set of themes: the value of early collaboration, the importance of creating a genuinely shared PMO, the need to make deliberate decisions about legacy transformation, and the reality that capacity is likely to be the most constrained resource throughout the programme.

The discussions reinforced the importance of distinguishing between vesting day and transformation. Safe and legal implementation remains the immediate priority, but councils are increasingly viewing LGR as the beginning of a longer journey rather than an endpoint. The most effective programmes focus on creating resilient organisations on day one while preserving the flexibility to redesign and improve services over time.

Perhaps the clearest message was that successful programmes depend as much on relationships as on structures. Governance frameworks, programme plans and implementation tools all matter, but trust, transparency and collective ownership were repeatedly identified as the factors that enable councils to navigate complexity together.

Few officers have prior experience implementing LGR at this scale, and many of the challenges encountered are new. Councils are urged to make full use of the support available to them: national guidance, sector resources, peer networks, facilitation or independent challenge. LGIU and Local Partnerships can provide practical assistance throughout the LGR journey, acting as critical friends, facilitating difficult conversations and helping councils test assumptions, strengthen governance and maintain momentum. Reading alongside the LGR PMO Pathway Toolkit, this guide is intended as the ‘thinking’ companion to that ‘doing’ resource.

Ultimately, a successful LGR will be built through hundreds of practical decisions made well, strong relationships between partners, and a continuing willingness to learn, adapt and improve throughout the journey.