Across legacy councils, professional services are often commissioned at pace to meet operational need. Over time, this creates a landscape of fragmented contracts, varying terms, and inconsistent governance. When those councils come together under a new authority, the cumulative risk of these arrangements becomes immediately apparent.
Why professional services contracts are a critical pressure point
For procurement teams and S151 officers (the statutory section 151 chief finance officers with personal responsibility for a council’s financial governance), one of the most acute challenges during LGR is the need to lawfully transfer, control, and manage large volumes of professional services contracts from multiple legacy organisations into a single new authority.
This activity must happen under intense time pressure, with limited capacity, and little tolerance for error. If contracts are not transferred correctly, authorities may face:
Loss of spend visibility and budgetary control
Increased audit and compliance risk
Legal exposure if arrangements are not lawfully continued
Disruption to critical services during the transition period
Unlike large strategic contracts, professional services engagements are often numerous and operationally embedded. Stopping them altogether is rarely an option, but continuing them without clear governance can create longer-term risk for the new authority.
The need for compliant continuity during transition
Experience across LGR programmes shows that the immediate priority is not wholesale re‑procurement or supplier change. Instead, it is about creating compliant continuity - maintaining essential services while restoring control, visibility, and assurance.
This requires a mechanism that allows professional services contracts to be:
Lawfully transitioned from legacy councils to the new authority
Managed through a single, streamlined commercial interface
Actively controlled in terms of spend, supplier performance, and scope
Varied, replaced, or exited at the right pace and time
Without this kind of structure in place, procurement and finance leaders can find themselves reacting to risk rather than reducing it.
Supporting authorities through local government reorganisation
Through Consultancy+, the services procurement arm of Reed Talent Solutions, we support public sector organisations to manage, govern, and control professional services spend during periods of structural change. In the context of LGR, this means helping authorities reduce commercial and compliance risk by providing a compliant mechanism to transition, consolidate, and actively manage professional services contracts as legacy councils come together. Our focus is on strengthening governance, restoring spend visibility, and maintaining lawful continuity of critical services throughout the transition.
As the sole supplier on the YPO 1141 framework, Consultancy+ provides a single, fully compliant managed service through which professional services contracts can be moved, consolidated, and actively managed during LGR.
In practical terms, this enables authorities to:
Transfer existing professional services engagements into a compliant managed service
Lawfully transition contracts from legacy councils into the new organisation
Consolidate and control consultancy and professional services spend, driving value and cost reduction through one commercial route
Maintain continuity of critical services without running multiple procurements
Reduce audit, compliance, and financial risk during a period of structural change
Assess the market for the right consultant and professional services providers to support the authority to deliver LGR.
Enable the authority to obtain value for money and hold consultants and professional services organisations to account for the successful delivery of LGR in their region, reducing the costs and risk of LGR.
For procurement leads and S151 officers, this provides certainty over governance and spend control at a point when internal capacity is stretched and operational complexity is high.
Creating space for the future organisation
By stabilising professional services contract management during transition, authorities are better positioned to make strategic decisions once the new organisation is fully established. This includes reviewing demand, reshaping service delivery models, and ensuring future procurement choices align with the authority’s long‑term objectives.
Local government reorganisation will always carry risk. However, with the right mechanisms in place, professional services do not need to be one of them.
If your organisation is navigating LGR and would benefit from a more controlled, compliant and cost-optimised approach to managing professional services contracts, Reed Talent Solutions can help. Get in touch with our experts today.
