Wiltshire Council Unitary Transformation

“Wiltshire Council has successfully emerged from the amalgamation of five authorities into one. And its efforts have now been recognised nationally by the CLG.” - Council Leader, Jane Scott, on the biggest change initiative for Wiltshire in 30 years.

A Practicus team has 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.

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.

The Authority engaged Practicus to help support the successful delivery of the transformation programme. Ian Cook, the Head of Programme Office, describes his experience of working with the Practicus Team: “Typically, we have found the individuals from Practicus to be highly knowledgeable, resourceful and adaptable providing genuine added value across the breadth of the Council’s functions. In terms of the transition to the new unitary Wiltshire Council, the person who was responsible for what became known as the ‘Day One Programme’ successfully programme managed the largest change in local government in Wiltshire for over 30 years. 

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. Yet, to date, this has been one of the most successful Unitary initiatives in the UK, achieved on time and under budget, and gaining a glowing report from the DCLG.

Jane Scott, “As a new unitary council, we are already making significant gains. There is greater efficiency…one back office, one chief executive and management team, and one property and asset portfolio. From our customers’ perspective, we’re easier to access – one phone number, one website, one customer centre in every town, and one point of contact. We also anticipated savings in our first year of £6.5m but we achieved £8.5m. Our aim is to deliver savings of £18m by our third year, and we expect to exceed that, as we must, in view of the pressures on public expenditure.”

See the Practicus video of Wiltshire's unitary transformation (appeared in the Management Journal, December 2009)

See testimonials from wiltshire and key stakeholders within the programme and senior executive team

You can find more information on our work with this organisation and on similar initiatives by contacting us.