Councils struggling to balance finances and citizen experience ahead of local government reorganisation
Almost all local authority finance leaders are finding it difficult to balance financial stability with delivering a positive citizen experience as councils prepare for the biggest reorganisation of local government in decades, according to new research from Access PaySuite.
The study, commissioned by the payments technology provider, found that 96 percent of finance leaders working in local authorities admit they are struggling to strike the balance as county and district councils across England prepare to merge into new unitary authorities ahead of the government’s April 2028 deadline.
Access PaySuite surveyed 100 finance leaders from local authorities, alongside conducting focus groups with leaders from existing unitary authorities and gathering insights from sector experts to understand the challenges facing councils during Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).
The research suggests finance teams are under growing pressure to deliver savings and efficiencies while maintaining frontline services and improving how residents interact with their council.
Jamie Symons, head of product and engineering at Access PaySuite, said: “This is a major piece of research which highlights common themes that are troubling finance leaders as they progress through the LGR transformation process. There’s no doubt that reorganisation is a huge opportunity, with the potential to improve services for residents, rebalance budgets and enable teams to deliver better work, but there are clear challenges ahead.”
He added: “The good news is that councils have navigated these challenges before and the focus groups we ran with those who’ve been through the process showed a consistent theme: while you can’t plan for every eventuality, you can build the capacity to discover it early.
“As we move towards April 2028, leadership, delivery teams, and suppliers will need to unite around a shared vision to make it a reality.”
Budget pressures dominate
The findings come as councils continue to face mounting financial pressures, including £7.4 billion in council tax arrears across England and £655 million in social housing rental arrears.
More than a third (36 percent) of finance leaders identified budgetary and funding constraints as the primary barrier to successful reorganisation, while 25 percent said aggressive or unrealistic programme timelines represented one of the biggest challenges.
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Meanwhile, 38 percent said maintaining performance in statutory services, including social care and waste management, would be a key measure of whether their LGR programme had succeeded.
Complex technology landscape
The report also highlights the technology challenges involved in bringing together multiple councils with different digital estates.
Andrew Rogers, a Socitm associate with more than 30 years’ experience supporting local authority digital transformation projects, said councils face significant complexity when consolidating systems.
“A typical region could have 11 councils, and each council might have 200 applications each with significant overlap between them. However, the systems used by a typical district council will be very different to those in place with a county council. The key risk is being operational on day one when the environment you’re coming from is so complicated.”
Keeping citizens at the centre
The research also warns that councils must avoid allowing organisational change to overshadow service delivery.
Georgina Maratheftis, associate director for local public services at techUK, said maintaining a focus on residents throughout the reorganisation process would be critical.
“This is such a big management change and there’s a focus on being safe and legal on day one, but the risk is that the citizen is forgotten. As you go through the LGR process the citizen needs to be at the heart of the redesign and reorganisation.
“LGR is the opportunity – and should become the blueprint – for us to create the council of the future.”
