Wiltshire Council Transformation

Through partnership with Practicus, Wiltshire Council successfully delivered the largest change in local government in Wiltshire for over 30 years, merging five authorities into one.

In just one year, Wiltshire County Council had to merge four District Councils and the County Council into one Unitary Authority. This would see root and branch change to people, culture, process and infrastructure –a highly complex challenge with extremely tight timelines to be met.

What Wiltshire Council achieved:

The Authority engaged Practicus to help support the successful delivery of the transformation programme.

The Practicus team worked alongside Council staff to deliver this crucial transformation. The new council’s vision is to nurture strong and resilient communities by working locally with partners and local people themselves.

This isn’t about incremental changes in efficiency. This is about a major redesign of services to eliminate ‘waste’ and change the respective roles of the state and the citizen.
Creating one fully functional organisation on Day One from five councils was a significant challenge. Requiring some 34 workstreams, no corner of the Authority has remained untouched by this process.

The overall outcome

This has been one of the most successful Unitary initiatives in the UK, achieves on time and under budget, and gaining a glowing reporting from the DCLG.

The Council anticipated savings in the first year of £6.5m and achieved £8.5m.

“Typically we have found Practicus individuals to be highly knowledgeable, resourceful and adaptable, providing genuine added value.” – Head of Programme Office, Wiltshire Council

Share this: