In summary:
- LGR uncertainty should not mean putting critical workforce decisions on hold.
- Workforce capacity, skills and capability are now strategic risks alongside finance and service continuity.
- Leading councils are protecting key talent and maintaining recruitment momentum while preparing for future organisational change.
As Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) moves from active implementation into a period of strategic review, planning and uncertainty, councils face a difficult challenge; continuing to make critical workforce decisions without a clear picture of their future operating model.
Leaders are preparing for organisations that don’t yet exist while continuing to deliver services through those that do. Structures remain unclear, priorities are shifting and decisions are being made without perfect information.
Caution is understandable. The danger is when caution becomes inaction.
Workforce pressures haven’t paused.
The latest Local Government Association data shows that 94% of councils are experiencing recruitment and retention difficulties, with shortages affecting many of the professions needed to sustain services and deliver change.
The pressure is particularly visible in frontline services. Adult social care alone has around 111,000 vacant posts in England, representing a vacancy rate of 7%. Children’s and adults’ social work also remain among the areas reporting significant recruitment and retention difficulties.
Whatever structure emerges, councils will still need the people and expertise required to protect services, meet statutory responsibilities and deliver transformation.
A council can redesign its structure in months. But rebuilding lost capability can take years.
The risk of standing still
Delaying recruitment may feel sensible when the future organisation remains unclear. But workforce risk continues to accumulate.
When a critical role remains vacant, the impact is felt elsewhere. Pressure grows on existing teams, specialist knowledge becomes harder to access and transformation loses momentum. Temporary arrangements become longer-term dependencies, while burnout increases the risk of losing more of the people the organisation relies on.
Waiting for greater clarity may therefore create the very risks leaders are trying to avoid. By the time the future structure is agreed, valuable knowledge and experience may already have left.
This isn’t simply a recruitment issue. It can affect service performance, financial control, transformation and public confidence.
For Chief Executives, the availability of the right skills and workforce capacity should be viewed alongside finance and service continuity as a corporate risk. For Chief People Officers, the challenge is identifying which critical skills and expertise are essential to future service delivery, and acting early to prevent capability gaps from becoming significant vulnerabilities.
The greatest workforce risk may not be making the wrong decision. It may be making no decision at all.
Leading organisations are focusing on the workforce decisions they can make today, rather than waiting for complete certainty about tomorrow. That includes identifying critical roles and skills, strengthening succession plans, developing internal talent pipelines and taking a more flexible approach to accessing specialist expertise where capacity gaps exist. The objective is not to predict the future organisation perfectly, but to ensure essential capability is available regardless of how plans evolve.
Protecting leadership capacity
At the point when Chief People Officers need to focus on organisational design, workforce planning and employee confidence, many are also managing persistent vacancies and day-to-day recruitment pressures.
That creates a difficult tension. The people teams best placed to guide the organisation through change can become consumed by keeping business-as-usual activity moving.
Leaders should therefore ask where their internal capacity adds the greatest value. Recruitment still needs to happen, but it shouldn’t prevent people leaders from addressing the workforce challenges that only they can lead.
This doesn’t not mean every vacancy should be filled, nor that recruitment is always the answer. Strong organisations will remain flexible. They will develop and redeploy their own people where possible and access additional capacity where needed, allowing essential services to continue while their leaders focus on shaping the future.
The cost of waiting
The councils that manage this period well won’t have predicted every change. They will have protected the expertise they need, kept essential services moving and retained enough flexibility to respond as plans develop.
That starts with knowing which capabilities the organisation can’t afford to lose and acting before gaps begin to affect delivery.
A pause in decision-making doesn’t pause the consequences. As councils navigate this period of uncertainty, the most effective organisations are likely to be those that balance flexibility with action, protecting critical capability today while preparing for whatever comes next.
The key question for leaders is not whether change is coming, but whether they have the culture, mindset, people, skills and capacity required to navigate it successfully.
If you're navigating Local Government Reorganisation and want to explore flexible resourcing support, you can reach out to me on our Recruitment and Resourcing Services page.