3rd June 2025
Local government reorganisation (LGR) is reshaping councils across the UK.
It’s clear that councils will have to collaborate to enhance service efficiency and eradicate duplication. This work should create stronger, more cohesive councils that will deliver better outcomes for citizens.
However, we all know that reorganising poses big challenges for councils. They will have to merge services, update old systems and keep services running smoothly during this time. To navigate through these complex changes, councils need a strategic approach. That’s where process mapping becomes an invaluable tool in LGR.
Process mapping initiatives in local government help teams to identify situations where resources are not utilised effectively. This can lead to wasted time, money or effort. In various sectors, inefficiencies can slow down progress and create challenges in meeting needs. Finding ways to improve efficiency can help achieve better outcomes and serve citizens more effectively.
By visually documenting workflows, process mapping helps councils to not only identify inefficiencies but also streamline operations and ensure a smooth transition – turning devolution from uncertainty into clarity. In this blog we’ll outline some of the key reasons why process mapping is so vital to LGR efforts and how to get started on your process improvement journey.
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Process mapping is a cornerstone of successful transformation, ensuring councils can:
If you don’t understand how your services work at present, your organisation may face problems. This can lead to wasted efforts, repeating tasks and not meeting the needs of those involved. Therefore, ensuring you are mapping your processes correctly means you are creating the foundation for smarter transformation and fostering informed decision-making and sustainable changes.
When councils consolidate services, they often inherit overlapping systems and processes. Mapping workflows gives a clear picture of how operations currently run, making it easier to spot redundancies, optimise efficiency and identify opportunities for automation.
For example, inefficiency can come from paying two sets of license fees to different vendors and creating two different interfaces that the team need to know how to use. Mapping the process will help determine which system is best placed to manage the new merged data by identifying the requirements and helping the team make a more informed decision.
In addition, mapping your processes and identifying the systems being used in your organisation helps with rationalisation of your technology estate. This can deliver vital cost savings.
Reorganisation will of course introduce operational uncertainty. Without proper planning, councils could experience service disruptions, miscommunications or gaps in delivery.
Process mapping helps councils to:
By mapping processes beforehand, local authorities can anticipate risks and think about implementing safeguards, making sure that essential services stay running perfectly while also focusing on restructuring governance models.
Local government reorganisation will affect a wide range of stakeholders – from council staff and elected officials to citizens, businesses and voluntary organisations. Clear and visual process mapping makes it easier to communicate changes, foster engagement and address concerns proactively.
Pro Tip: Create cross-functional teams and implementation boards to oversee process mapping. This will help buy-in from internal stakeholders and ensure decisions are in alignment.
Many councils are expected to simultaneously undergo reorganisation while implementing devolution strategies. This dual delivery approach adds complexity, but needn’t be overwhelming. By implementing process mapping, transitions can be simplified to:
When done effectively, process mapping can align reorganisation efforts with policy shifts, ensuring councils remain agile and responsive.
The UK government’s push for unitary authorities includes expectations for populations exceeding 500,000 residents, leading to expanded service areas and reshaped leadership structures. Therefore, councils are going to need governance models that:
Again, process mapping will help local authorities to create governance models that are effective and represent local needs.
There are some simple steps we can take to ensure that process mapping is a help, not a hindrance to your LGR efforts. If you want to get started, we recommend the following steps:
Modern process mapping is so much more than just paper documents gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere. Digital solutions like Liberty Spark, our process mapping solution, can help councils to see, automate and improve their workflows as they occur.
Lancashire County Council successfully used Liberty Spark to map complex processes and identify improvement opportunities. It has provided a centralised platform for process documentation and analysis, improving stakeholder engagement.
“Spark can truly revolutionise the way you do process discovery and have those conversations with the business.“
Amisha Chauhan
Lancashire County Council
By investing in process mapping, the council enhanced collaboration, reduced duplication and improved service delivery – setting a benchmark for other local authorities.
Local government reorganisation demands precision, collaboration, and strategic execution. Process mapping offers a powerful framework for councils to:
By leveraging process mapping solutions like Spark, councils can transform LGR from uncertainty to success, delivering better outcomes for citizens while driving strategic modernisation.
Get in touch with the team to learn more.
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Process mapping is the key to making reorganisation seamless and effective
