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LGR: First 100 Days Playbook
Surrey’s blueprint for getting LGR right
Why the First 100 Days Matter
East and West Surrey will hold their first elections in May 2026. Less than a year later on 1 April 2027, the two new unitary authorities will replace twelve existing councils. The period between the elections and Vesting Day will determine whether the new councils begin with clarity, legitimacy and operational stability, or inherit the avoidable delays seen elsewhere.
This summary draws on the early work of the LGR Governance Series, which has been gathering interviews, evidence and lessons from recent reorganisations, including Dorset, Somerset, Cumbria, Northumberland, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, and will continue to guide Surrey throughout the transition.
The Five Disciplines That Define a Successful Start
1. Democratic Legitimacy & Cross-Party Stewardship
New authorities only succeed when their political leadership builds legitimacy early, clearly explains how the new system works, and works cross-party in the interests of all communities. This will be particularly hard to achieve in the current environment.
As residents adjust to a new governance landscape, trust will be shaped less by structure and more by behaviour — transparency, fairness, and a shared narrative for what “good growth” means in the new Surrey.
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Legitimacy is strengthened when councillors commit to:
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Setting an early, unified cross-party narrative about the purpose of reorganisation.
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Demonstrating respect for due process, evidence and probity.
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Offering consistent public messaging, even where political views differ. This is the foundation for every other discipline.
Without legitimacy, even strong systems struggle.
2. Systems Convergence & Organisation-Wide Performance Visibility
Reorganisation only works when the new authorities operate through a single, coherent set of systems. Surrey inherits not only twelve planning platforms, but multiple customer portals, workflow tools, document stores, finance systems, case management processes and data standards. If these are carried forward unchanged, East and West Surrey will spend their early years reconciling inconsistencies instead of delivering improvement.
Successful reorganisations stabilise quickly because they:
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Create one unified operational workflow for core services, not a patchwork of inherited processes.
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Establish single sources of truth for data, documents and performance reporting.
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Map and rationalise customer journeys so residents experience East or West Surrey, not twelve legacy councils.
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Deploy early performance dashboards that give members and officers real-time visibility across priority services.
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Treat digital and data decisions as governance decisions, not technical upgrades.
Systems convergence is not about technology. It is the foundation for consistent service delivery, transparent leadership, and early public confidence in the new authorities.
3. Clear Accountability & Senior Leadership Discipline
Reorganisation exposes gaps in accountability immediately. Without clarity, teams hesitate, decisions slow, and officers and members become risk-averse.
Effective new authorities establish:
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Defined reporting lines across development management, policy, enforcement and infrastructure.
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A visible, empowered Service Lead for each function who provides strategic direction and leads cultural change, while giving their teams the authority and support to deliver the Council’s work effectively.
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A structured transition governance model to prevent issues falling between teams.
Strong leadership discipline does not remove political disagreement, instead it ensures the system continues to function despite it.
4. Governance Clarity to Reduce Planning Delays (Structures, Delegation & Pathways)
Governance clarity is where early stability becomes operational reality. Councils succeed when they adopt clean, coherent decision-making arrangements from the outset and avoid replicating legacy complexity.
This requires:
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A single, authoritative Scheme of Delegation.
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One published decision pathway that officers, members and applicants all understand.
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A commitment to review interim committee structures within weeks, not years.
Governance clarity is not about tidiness, it is about preventing avoidable delay and protecting councillors’ and officers’ ability to make defensible decisions.
5. The Housing Crisis and Delivery Realism
Reorganisation does not remove planning pressures; it reshapes them. Legacy plans remain in force until replaced, although housing delivery will be assessed across the whole authority, not by former district.
This means:
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A deficit in one area affects planning decisions in another.
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Communications with MPs, residents and developers must be clear and evidence-based.
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Councillors must understand the consequences of the Five Year Housing Land Supply (5YHLS) from the start.
Early honesty prevents future conflict, and ensures difficult decisions are understood in context.
The full ‘First 100 Days Playbook’ will be published later this week. You can register now to receive it on release.
The First 100 Days: The Essentials
Weeks 1–4
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Confirm delegations
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Publish decision pathway
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Begin workflow and data audit
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Deliver member induction
Weeks 5–8
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Launch political narrative
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Begin digital convergence
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Establish Stabilisation Board
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Publish resident-facing explainers
Weeks 9–12
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Publish performance dashboards
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Review committee structures
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Finalise 5YHLS communication
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Sign off Vesting Day Operating Model
Get the Playbook as its published
The full First 100 Days Playbook, with detailed actions, risks, opportunities and a week-by-week plan, will be published later this week.
Sign up here to receive it on release.
This article is part of the LGR Governance Series from Coalface. To receive new pieces and supporting material as they are published, subscribe using the button on the right.
OLDER POSTS
An Open Letter to the Councillors of East and West Surrey
This letter has been sent in the future, on Friday, 8 May 2026, the day after the 2026 Elections.
Dear Newly Elected Councillors of East and West Surrey,
5 Lessons To Learn To Make Your New Councils Successful
Congratulations on your election! You are the first Councillors to take your seats on either the East or West Surrey Council, In just under a year on 1 April 2027, Vesting Day your Councils will emerge from the shadows to take over from 12 councils that will disappear.
It is the most significant restructuring of local government in Surrey’s history and part of a wider national programme intended to create clearer governance, stronger accountability and, crucially, a planning system able to make timely, confident decisions.
At the LGR Governance Series, we have been tracking this programme as it has unfolded. We have been examining what has worked and what has not in your predecessor authorities in Dorset, Northumberland, Somerset, Cumbria, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. We have spoken with leaders, senior officers and practitioners who have had to make reorganisation work in real time. The Series is closely following Surrey as a live test case, asking what your new authorities will need to do from the moment they come into being.
As set out in the Editor’s Letter that opened the Series, reorganisation is not an administrative exercise. It rewires political leadership, digital infrastructure, service integration, committee arrangements and the culture in which planning, and indeed politics, operates at this level. It determines whether councils can create environments where decisions are taken with pace, transparency and legitimacy. Surrey is the test of whether this ambition can be realised, rather than lost to disruption, legacy systems or governance drift.
This moment brings both opportunity and risk. At the very begin of this Series, in our opening conversations with Tim Oliver, Eric Owens and Andrew Kelly, one message was consistent. Success will not come from the scale of the restructure but from the discipline with which you govern its early months. The lessons below draw together those perspectives with evidence gathered over fifteen months of research, case studies and analysis in the LGR Governance Series.
You inherit a planning system carrying significant national pressure. More than one hundred thousand undecided applications sit in the system across England. Decision rates have declined. Officer shortages persist in every region. Surrey magnifies these issues through eleven inherited planning departments, twelve digital systems and multiple interpretations of policy that must now be brought into a single, coherent pathway.
Against that backdrop, five lessons will determine whether East and West Surrey begin on firm ground or spend their first two years trying to correct avoidable mistakes.
Lesson 1: Governance discipline is the condition for faster, fairer decisions
Oliver stressed that early clarity in governance is the single most important factor in preventing drift. Without it, political purpose fragments and operational pathways become contested. He noted that members will only be able to deliver on the promises of reorganisation if the system around them is simple, structured and free from legacy habits that no longer serve the new authorities.
Owens reinforced this from a planning leadership perspective. He described how, in other reorganisations, the priority was to get through Vesting Day with a scheme that worked, then move quickly to review and consolidate delegations and committee structures once the new authority was live. In his experience, unclear delegation and committee routes slow decisions, create political tension and reduce public confidence if they are not addressed early.
Dorset’s multiyear effort to harmonise committees and processes shows how difficult it is to unwind complexity once it is embedded. Somerset’s confused delegations demonstrated how decisions can stall when no one is certain who has authority.
What you must do:
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adopt a single, authoritative Scheme of Delegation from the outset
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publish a clear decision pathway that members, officers and applicants can all follow
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where legacy committee arrangements are carried forward into Vesting Day, treat them as an interim baseline only, with a clear timetable to review and simplify
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keep committees to the minimum required for statutory oversight and risk control
Without governance discipline, reorganisation turns from an opportunity into an administrative burden.
Lesson 2: Democratic legitimacy is your social licence to plan
Both Oliver and Kelly emphasised legitimacy as the real test of reorganisation. Kelly observed that public scepticism grows quickly when residents do not understand how new authorities intend to make decisions or how their voices will be considered. He saw this first hand in councils where structural change was mistaken for an automatic improvement in public trust.
Oliver stressed that political coherence must be built early. Residents will judge you not on the mechanics of the restructure but on whether decisions reflect local priorities and whether councillors understand and can articulate the authority’s direction. If legitimacy is not actively created, the perception of distance will harden.
Examples from elsewhere reinforce this. In Somerset, councillors described reduced participation rights as a democratic setback. In Dorset and Buckinghamshire, legitimacy improved only when leaders invested in a political narrative that explained the purpose of reorganisation and how communities would be involved.
What you must do:
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craft a shared narrative for what good growth means in East and West Surrey
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treat resident engagement as a way to assess performance, not a courtesy
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invest in member training so councillors understand probity, policy and their decision making roles
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use digital transparency as a means of demonstrating fairness and accountability
Without legitimacy, even lawful decisions invite challenge and resistance.
Lesson 3: One digital system is the only way to create one version of the truth
Owens was clear that digital fragmentation is not a technical inconvenience but a systemic risk. In his experience, legacy systems are the silent cause of inconsistency, delay and officer burnout. Councils that underestimate digital convergence spend years compensating for avoidable inefficiency.
Dorset learned this the hard way, inheriting multiple incompatible systems that took years to consolidate. Cumbria shows the same pattern. Strategic clarity achieved at the political level but day to day planning performance constrained by data, systems and inherited workflows.
Authorities that converge their digital systems in planning early regain control over caseloads and performance. Those that delay spend years managing workarounds instead of improving outcomes. Across the authorities studied in the LGR Governance Series, digital fragmentation has been one of the most consistent sources of avoidable pressure.
Surrey begins from an even more complex baseline. If you carry forward twelve systems and dozens of bespoke processes, you will be scaling up the very fragmentation reorganisation was meant to resolve.
What you must do:
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implement a single workflow per authority with one validation checklist
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publish live dashboards to enforce internal accountability and provide public clarity
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use digital data to diagnose inherited bottlenecks before they become performance failures
Reorganisation without digital discipline is reorganisation without improvement.
Lesson 4: Clear accountability prevents governance and financial drift
Kelly underlined the risk of grey zones. He explained how ambiguity in reporting lines paralyses decision making, erodes officer confidence and leaves members frustrated. His emphasis on clean structures is grounded in experience. Unclear accountability creates friction that absorbs time, dilutes ownership and damages outcomes.
Oliver linked this directly to leadership. He emphasised that new authorities succeed only when they set a clear direction early and maintain stability through the transition. His view was that reorganisation becomes harder when major decisions are repeatedly reopened or when political purpose is uncertain. That instability makes it harder for officers to provide clear advice and for members to make confident choices.
Somerset and Woking provide contrasting but equally instructive warnings. Somerset’s early delays were caused not by lack of money but unclear responsibility. Woking’s financial collapse showed how quickly organisational stress accumulates when governance controls weaken.
What you must do
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define every role and reporting line before they are tested in real time
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strengthen planning teams autonomy so they can anchor both political and operational leadership
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invest properly in transition, especially programme management and data migration
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align committee responsibilities and officer authority to prevent cases slipping between teams
Without accountability, Surrey will face disputes that distract from delivery.
Lesson 5: Be honest about how housing delivery will be judged in a new Surrey
All three interviewees pointed to the political and practical implications of housing delivery. They stressed that reorganisation does not ease this pressure. It recalibrates it. Boundaries change. Monitoring arrangements shift. Communities try to understand why outcomes in one place influence decisions in another.
Owens highlighted that unless councillors explain these shifts early, the new authorities risk confusion, appeals and conflict. Developers will assume supply is consolidated. Residents will assume it is not. Both will expect a clear explanation.
National guidance confirms that, after reorganisation, predecessor local plans continue to apply until they are replaced. However, once East Surrey adopts a new Local Plan, the Five Year Housing Land Supply will be assessed across the whole authority, not by legacy district. Dorset, Cumberland, and Westmorland & Furness are already navigating the consequences of this shift.
For East Surrey this is not an abstract risk. One former authority is projected to fall so far short of its housing requirement that, once supply is measured across the new unitary, it could pull the combined figures below the threshold at which the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies. In that scenario, areas where legacy councils have maintained a five year supply would still share the planning consequences with those that have not.
Over the course of the Series we have seen how quickly tensions rise when expectations about delivery are not managed. Authorities that were honest from the outset have found it easier to defend decisions. Those that were not, are still dealing with the fallout.
What you must now consider:
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how surpluses and deficits will be balanced across former districts
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whether you will publish sub area monitoring to protect transparency
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how you will explain to residents that decisions in one area influence planning freedoms in another
Honesty now prevents political and operational conflict later.
Conclusion
The LGR Series has tracked how reorganisation reshapes governance, planning and public trust. We have seen where it has created clearer structures, stronger services and better organised planning teams. We have also seen where it has exposed financial fragility, digital weakness and gaps in political management.
As the Editor’s Letter argued at the outset, reorganisation is a moment of possibility. It can create cleaner governance, stronger services and more resilient planning systems. It can also expose every weakness that preceded it. In Oliver’s view, the only way to avoid the latter is for councillors to impose clarity, purpose and discipline from the outset. In Owens’ view, the planning system will stand or fall on delegation, digital convergence and member confidence. In Kelly’s view, legitimacy and accountability are the conditions on which every decision depends.
If you enforce governance discipline, strengthen democratic legitimacy, converge your digital systems, establish visible accountability and confront housing delivery realities directly, East and West Surrey can set a national benchmark.
If not, Surrey risks joining the list of reorganisations defined not by ambition but by avoidable delay.
This letter, and the entire LGR Series is there to support you as you navigate the formation on you new authority. Use this letter as the strategic frame for your first one hundred days.
We will be keenly watching and hoping for success.
Rowan Cole, COALFACE
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In the coming weeks, we will publish the full interviews with Tim Oliver, Eric Owens and Andrew Kelly, alongside deeper case studies of Dorset, Northumberland and Somerset.
This page is part of the LGR Governance Series from Coalface. New material is added as further articles and analysis are published.
This article is part of the LGR Governance Series from Coalface. To receive new pieces and supporting material as they are published, subscribe using the button on the right.
If you would like to discuss how these issues affect your organisation, we work with promoters, councils and programme sponsors on specific schemes and wider governance programmes. Please get in touch to talk through what you are working on.