Protecting and supporting children is a vital role of any local authority, and as such councils will be looking carefully at their children’s services arrangements throughout LGR and beyond.
Clear leadership, stable governance and well‑aligned service arrangements help the new authority continue to safeguard children, support families and deliver positive outcomes for young people. Establishing shared approaches across predecessor councils supports continuity of statutory responsibilities, smooth integration of services and consistent partnership working. This foundation enables the new council to strengthen early help, improve practice and maintain a strong focus on the needs of children and families from day one.
Insights from LGR‑experienced councils show that effective children’s services arrangements typically involve:
- Establishing clear leadership and oversight arrangements for children’s services; principles set out by ADCS on LGR and children and young people’s services may help guide this.
- Ensuring early engagement between political leaders and statutory officers.
- Early consideration around staffing, dedicated support and recognition of the scale of change to enable strong planning, as outlined in a review of the disaggregation programme in Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness.
- Aligning services around place and partnership working; resources such as Building the Best Places for Children and Families highlight the value of system‑wide leadership.
- Designing resilient operating models informed by sector learning, including analysis from Isos Partnership on children’s services and structural change.
- Recognising the contribution of all council types and local partners, in order to take advantage of opportunities arising from unitarisation.
- Maintaining strong professional leadership and workforce stability, reinforced by sector commentary on the importance of continuity during reorganisation.
This approach supports a smooth transition while keeping children and families at the centre of planning. Shared expectations, aligned governance and consistent partnership working help professionals operate confidently across the new authority.
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LGR Toolkit
This toolkit hub brings together resources from across the sector to help those going through local government reorganisation (LGR).
LGR: Checklist
The following checklist outlines a range of key actions that must be undertaken at each stage of the LGR process, along with links to resources that will help councils to deliver those actions.