More new content on the LGR digital playbook! This time, it’s quite a long read on commercial, contract and supplier considerations during reorganisation.

This quote from a local gov person interviewed for the piece is perceptive and as a sector we ought to be having a think about what can be done about it:

We’re mostly using the same suppliers across councils, and that’s something we need to recognise early. If several authorities are going through reorganisation at the same time, those suppliers are going to be working with all of us simultaneously. It would really help if there was a way of bringing councils and suppliers together to talk about how systems might be merged or separated. Otherwise, every council ends up trying to solve the same problem independently.

I wonder if there might be a role here for someone to act as some kind of ‘broker’ between council demand and supply from the market. Perhaps even organising the staggering of work, so we don’t have everyone doing social care at the same time?