The LGR pause should not mean putting public service innovation on hold

By Matt Culpin, Chief Product Officer at IEG Group #LPSInnovation2026

The Government’s decision to pause and review much of the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) programme has changed the immediate context for councils. Questions that recently felt settled about future structures, boundaries and timelines are now uncertain again.

That uncertainty should change how councils invest in technology, but it should not become a reason to stop improving services.

Improve now. Design for change later.

Councils should not make irreversible technology decisions based on an assumption that today’s organisational structure will exist forever. Equally, residents should not have to live with fragmented journeys, avoidable contact and inefficient processes while the future shape of local government is decided.

The answer is to modernise now, while building flexibility into both the technology and the commercial model. Solutions should be able to expand across additional councils or successor authorities, add users and services as organisations consolidate, transfer to new authorities, and bring multiple deployments together if a future single authority is created. Commercial arrangements should also recognise LGR uncertainty, with appropriate transfer or termination provisions and protection against customers effectively paying twice when structures change.

This is particularly important for citizen-facing services. Improving the resident journey today should not depend on a political and structural process over which councils currently have limited control. A flexible Digital Experience Platform can help councils simplify access, increase self-service and reduce avoidable contact now, while supporting a multi-council approach and creating a route to consolidation later.

At IEG Group, we start with the service problem and the outcome that needs to improve, then identify where technology can remove repetitive administration, reduce avoidable contact or give staff faster access to reliable information. Across more than 270 public-sector customers, our digital platforms have processed over 6.8 million forms and supported more than one million citizen engagement accounts. Councils using our Digital Experience Platform have reported reductions in phone contact of up to 50% and face-to-face visits of up to 45%.

The same principle applies to AI. Councils do not need to wait for a new organisational structure before solving well-defined operational problems. AI should be applied within clear boundaries, with professional accountability retained and with technology that can adapt as services and structures evolve.

Planning validation is a good example. IEG Group’s AI Planning Validator combines AI with configurable council rules, GIS data, workflow and existing planning systems. At Salford City Council, validation and registration of a standard householder application reduced from around 40 minutes to 15 minutes, a reduction of up to 60%. Crucially, the solution works alongside existing systems rather than requiring wholesale replacement.

The current pause may have changed the LGR timetable, but it has not removed the need to improve public services. Councils can still redesign journeys, remove friction and adopt trusted technology today, provided they preserve the flexibility to adapt tomorrow.

LGR should not be a reason to delay investment. It should be a reason to make smarter, more flexible investment decisions.

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