Agenda: Two Days to Shape the Future of Local Government Join senior leaders from across the Midlands to tackle the sector’s biggest challenges - through collaboration, insight and innovation.

Nick Kimber will discuss the thinking behind the government’s public sector reform agenda and its role in boosting growth and improving the quality of public services.

With local government reorganisation underway in two-tier areas, Adele Wylie gives her advice on managing a new authority based on her experiences at North Northamptonshire Council since 2020.

Amy Hartoff, as chief executive of a new combined authority created in March 2024, will look at how Combined Authorities are changing the landscape of local government as major strategic bodies

The session will give an overview of recent research undertaken by GatenbySanderson, to consider how public sector leadership can best steer periods of structural and political change and wider transformation.

We focus upon the impact of the senior leadership team and the resilience required to navigate this period of sustained change and disruption, whilst successfully bringing the rest of the organisation along the journey. We combine this with a look at leadership behaviours, the strengths that point to success and the potential derailers that are likely to manifest when operating under pressure.

The panel will give personal perspectives on managing change, offering advice and providing challenge back to the audience.

LGR will lead to the creation of large new unitary councils, formed by the merger of districts and smaller unitaries. To achieve economies of scale and maximise efficiency, it will make sense to combine services such as waste collection into a single operation. However, this brings its own challenges. In merging two, three or even four councils into one, the new authority may be faced with different service delivery models, collection frequencies and wide disparities in employee terms and conditions; and the likelihood of varying end dates of contracts. Combining the services into a single entity is going to be enormously complex, and will require a high degree of flexibility to encompass the changes. Procurement is likely to be extremely difficult. What are the alternatives?