LGR needs a new operating model, not just a new council
- ICS AI
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Our CEO Martin Neale features in the May/June 2026 edition of Public Sector Focus, in a special report on devolution and local government reorganisation that also draws on voices from the King's Fund, the Centre for Local Economies and the National Audit Office. His argument is that the traditional, manual way of running an LGR programme spends too much capacity on administration, and that what reorganisation really needs is a redesigned operating model. We set out the viability gap behind this in more detail in last week's post.
LGR is the largest structural reform of English local government in a generation. Across
England, new unitary authorities are being created with the ambition of delivering simpler services, greater efficiency and long-term financial sustainability.
Previous programmes achieved their primary objective of creating councils that were safe and legal on Day One. But the evidence from recent reorganisations shows a recurring pattern. New councils tend to inherit the full cost base, structures, systems and contractual commitments of their predecessor authorities, while transformation and efficiency arrive much later than planned. Six of the nine councils created between 2019 and 2023 went on to require Exceptional Financial Support from central government.
Why does this keep happening?
The traditional approach to LGR is heavily manual. Vast amounts of information about staff, contracts, assets, systems and finances have to be collected, validated and reconciled through spreadsheets, documents, email chains and reporting cycles. It is striking that a reform this important and this time-critical is still run on operating models built around manual administration and fragmented information.
Research from previous programmes suggests that as much as 85 per cent of programme capacity can be consumed by administrative activity: collecting data, validating returns, consolidating spreadsheets, producing reports and answering queries. In practice that can absorb six to twelve months of an eighteen to twenty-four month timeline before meaningful transformation can even begin. Baselines take months to build and are often out of date by the time they are finished, and having a clear view across the whole programme is genuinely hard.
A different operating model
The question worth asking is a simple one. What if programme teams could establish a reliable organisational baseline in weeks rather than months, and reinvest that time in service harmonisation, organisational design, contract rationalisation and financial planning before Vesting Day?
That question led to the SMART: LGR Command Workbench, an AI-enabled operating environment designed specifically for LGR and part of the ICS.AI SMART: Day One Accelerator Programme. It replaces manual, spreadsheet-based processes with a single environment for collecting, governing, analysing and optimising programme information. Built around three connected capabilities, Data, Baseline and Optimise, it uses AI to automate data extraction, structuring and analysis, so that a progressive baseline builds as information arrives rather than waiting for every return to land first.
By compressing baseline creation from six to twelve months down to a target of sixteen to twenty-four weeks, the Workbench creates more time for the activities that decide whether a council becomes financially viable. Transformation opportunities, risks and financial efficiencies can be identified throughout the programme and carried into the new authority from Day One. And it is not a temporary tool: after Vesting Day it becomes part of the new authority's permanent operating infrastructure, a living organisational knowledge base that supports ongoing transformation and continuous improvement.
The real objective is a viable council
The innovation here is not simply applying AI. It is redesigning the operating model for LGR itself. AI does not replace programme teams; it frees them to spend less time on administration and more time on the work that creates a financially viable council.
As councils prepare for the next wave of reorganisation, safe and legal is no longer enough. Safe and legal is the floor, not the ceiling. The real objective is councils that are safe, legal and financially viable from Day One. The question is no longer whether AI has a role in LGR. It is whether councils can afford to keep running one of the most important transformation programmes in a generation on operating models built around manual administration and spreadsheets.
You can read the full feature in the May/June 2026 edition of Public Sector Focus. To see how the SMART: LGR Command Workbench works, watch the short introduction video at smartlgraccelerator.ai, or get in touch to arrange a walkthrough.
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