Devolution & Local Government Reform
English local government is being restructured on a scale not seen in fifty years. We help authorities, combined authorities and new unitary councils navigate reorganisation, mayoral establishment and the reform settlement — building capability as we go, not dependency.
The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 (Royal Assent 29 April 2026) created Strategic Authorities (Foundation, Mayoral, Established Mayoral) and a new wave of mayors. Reorganisation is collapsing 21 two-tier county areas into new unitary councils, with most going live around vesting day on 1 April 2028. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 reshaped the planning function. This is the largest structural change the sector has faced in half a century.
The moment
The reform window is open now. Councils are simultaneously managing day-to-day service delivery, preparing for structural dissolution or merger, designing new governance arrangements, novating contracts, transferring staff and building entirely new organisations from the ground up. The timeline is compressed, the legal complexity is substantial, and the consequences of getting it wrong are measured in judicial review, financial failure and service collapse.
Why it needs specialist support
Reorganisation lands on exactly the legal, commercial and planning capacity councils struggle most to recruit. It carries judicial-review risk where process is flawed. It requires simultaneous expertise in constitutional law, employment law, contract law, planning law, governance design and financial structuring. The decisive variable is the quality of design, not the quantum of money.
Generic consultancy support is not sufficient. The work requires practitioners who understand both the legal architecture and the operational reality of local government at pace.
How we help
- Local government reorganisation — vesting and transfer, contract novation, TUPE, disaggregation and re-aggregation of services, apportionment of debt, reserves and pension liabilities, council-tax harmonisation, new constitutions and governance
- Strategic Authority and mayoral establishment — constitutional design and the legal architecture of devolved powers over transport, planning and housing
- Commercial, regeneration and planning — Spatial Development Strategies, delegation schemes, member training, land-value capture
- Governance, risk and audit-readiness — the controls that prevent financial failure in newly created organisations
- Funding and fiscal strategy — Fair Funding exposure modelling, DSG-deficit planning, reserves strategy for new unitaries
- Prevention and demand management — spend-to-save strategies that address structural deficits at source rather than through repeated salami-slicing
Our approach to reorganisation support
- Map the legal and structural landscape: identify what transfers, what dissolves, what must be created from scratch, and where the judicial-review exposure sits
- Design the governance architecture for the new organisation: constitution, scheme of delegation, terms of reference, member-officer protocols and decision-making pathways
- Structure the commercial transition: contract audit, novation strategy, TUPE compliance, pension and debt apportionment
- Build the financial framework: council-tax harmonisation modelling, reserves strategy, Fair Funding exposure analysis
- Deliver implementation support: we remain engaged through vesting day and beyond, ensuring the new organisation is operationally sound, not merely legally compliant
The reform window is open now; the quality of what is built within it is still to be decided. We help you build it well.
This page provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Figures are current as at mid-2026, drawn from public sources (House of Commons Library, NAO, GOV.UK). Readers should verify current positions before relying on any specific figure or date.