There were a few general themes which emerged in the discussion about unitarisation. First, it is clear that unitarisation is a long process. Some of the councils spoken to are several years into the unitarisation process and changes are still being worked through and implemented. Officers should be mindful of this when work on unitarisation begins.
Second, there are a number of corporate factors outside the control of heads of regulatory services which will have an impact on the process. One of these factors is staff pay. When teams merged, officers found that some members of staff had the same job title but the job responsibilities and salaries were different in each former council area. Initially staff were willing to show good will and accept different pay grades whilst pay structures were finalised but, if this process is not done quickly, it can understandably cause unhappiness if some staff are earning less than their peers. Early input from senior managers on this issue is important and clear HR practices were also highlighted as being essential.
Given the financial constraints in which all councils are operating, it is likely that identifying savings will form part of the process of unitarisation, and this will apply to regulatory services as well as to other service areas. As such, not all existing budget lines from predecessor authorities may be continued in the new authority; for example, some officers highlighted that training budgets were initially removed. Recognising upfront that these constraints would exist was seen as sensible.
Officers also highlighted IT as a key challenge. It is possible that each council going through the unitarisation process may be using different IT systems and this makes merging structures and working practices harder. Additionally, it is likely that any county council IT system will have no licensing or environmental health function which could require officers to input information manually. Officers in councils who have gone through this process had to manage this through developing good working relationships, but it may be worth highlighting this as an issue for IT teams to consider early.
More broadly, officers highlighted the important role that council communications teams have in developing a shared identity and keeping staff abreast of changes. Some officers highlighted their council’s decision to change the email addresses of all members of staff, rather than opting to keep one council’s email address, as being a particularly helpful measure. Officers felt that keeping one of the previous council’s email addresses could be perceived as a council ‘take-over’ and would be detrimental to efforts to establish a new, shared identity. Other councils adopted the new unitary council’s branding in advance of vesting day to start to develop a shared identity, and officers also regarded this as a helpful measure.