From complexity to clarity: citizen-focused local government reorganisation outcomes

Guest blog by Chris Berry, Sales Director at IEG4 Group #localgovernmentreorganisation

Chris Berry

Sales Director, IEG4 Group

LGR is one of the most complex operational challenges a council will ever face. It arrives with political pressure, immovable deadlines and intense scrutiny, yet there is no pause on business as usual. Citizens still need services, frontline teams are still stretched, and the risks around cyber security, legacy contracts and fragmented data do not wait for governance structures to settle.

From my experience working alongside UK public sector organisations; supporting councils, NHS bodies and blue light services to modernise critical digital foundations, one truth has always stood out:

When public services work, nobody notices.

When they fail, everyone does.

That perspective matters during reorganisation, because LGR is not a greenfield digital programme and it cannot be approached as a simple IT consolidation exercise.

The biggest wins in public sector transformation rarely come from “big bang” programmes. They come from simplifying complexity, reducing risk and quietly making life easier for staff and residents. These are the improvements that stick, because they build confidence internally and trust externally.

Reorganisation is often described as a technology challenge, but in practice the hardest part is orchestration. Multiple systems rarely exist because of poor technology choices. They exist because services evolved differently under different pressures, over many years. Seven planning systems exist because there are seven different approaches to planning. Seven CRMs exist because teams designed citizen journeys in different ways. If councils focus only on migrating systems without redesigning the services underneath, inefficiency is simply preserved at scale.

The councils most likely to succeed treat LGR as service transformation enabled by technology, not technology consolidation dressed up as transformation.

That shift in mindset is critical.

LGR should ultimately be judged by whether citizens experience a better, simpler council, not by how many platforms were merged.

At IEG Group, we support councils at the application layer where staff and residents actually experience public services. Our platforms enable digital front doors, workflow orchestration, case management, automation, regulatory processes and AI-enabled triage. This gives us a practical vantage point: focusing on how services operate, not just how systems connect.

In reorganisation, time is the scarcest resource. A key best practice is establishing a single digital front door early, giving citizens a consistent experience while legacy systems remain in place behind the scenes. Another is converging processes before systems, using configurable workflows to standardise best-practice ways of working across the new authority. This reduces duplication, improves resilience and creates a foundation for later consolidation.

We also see value in building a single view of the citizen through shared case management and consistent records, supporting joined-up services and better decision-making. AI can help, but only where it delivers safe, immediate value, such as automated categorisation, triage support and knowledge assistance for overstretched teams. Above all, transformation must be phased and iterative. LGR timelines are unforgiving, and councils need fast wins and reduced risk, not long programmes that take years to show benefit.

Local government reorganisation hub

Local government reorganisation is reshaping more than 200 councils, creating both complexity and opportunity for digital transformation. The LGR hub brings together case studies, practical insight and lessons from public and private sector mergers to support effective, resilient transitions. Explore how technology can enable safe and sustainable change for day one and beyond.

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