Committee Report Checklist
Stage 1
Report checklist – responsibility of report owner
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ITEM |
Yes / No |
Date |
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Councillor engagement / input from Chair prior to briefing |
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Relevant Group Head review |
Yes |
28/9/26 |
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MAT+ review (to have been circulated at least 5 working days before Stage 2) |
Yes |
28/09/26 |
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This item is on the Forward Plan for the relevant committee |
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Reviewed by |
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Finance comments (circulate to Finance) |
AB |
01/10/26 |
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Risk comments (circulate to Lee O’Neil) |
LO |
29/09/26 |
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Legal comments (circulate to legal@spelthorne.gov.uk) |
LH |
28/09/26 |
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HR comments (if applicable) |
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For reports with material financial or legal implications the author should engage with the respective teams at the outset and receive input to their reports prior to asking for MO or s151 comments.
Do not forward to stage 2 unless all the above have been completed.
Stage 2
Report checklist – responsibility of report owner
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ITEM |
Completed by |
Date rec’d |
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Monitoring Officer commentary – at least 5 working days before MAT |
L Heron |
28/09/26 |
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S151 Officer commentary – at least 5 working days before MAT |
T. Collier |
27/09/26 |
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Commissioner engagement |
J. Kingston |
01/10/2026 |
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Comment included in s.7. |
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Relevant MAT member sign-off |
T.Collier |
2/10/26 |
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Report reviewed by Management Team |
T.Collier |
01/10/26 |
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Title |
Procurement of resource to support the LGR transition and transformation process |
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Purpose of the report |
To make a decision |
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Report Author |
Terry Collier, Deputy Chief Executive |
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Ward(s) Affected |
All Wards
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Exempt |
No |
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Exemption Reason |
N/A |
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Corporate Priority |
All
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Recommendations
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Committee is asked to:
To approve the procurement to modify the contract of the Head of LGR and Special Projects to support Spelthorne’s transition into West Surrey and contribute towards the required transformation process.
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Reason for Recommendation |
In order to help ensure a smooth LGR process for residents, councillors and staff. |
1. Executive summary of the report (expand detail in Key Issues section below)
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What is the situation |
Why we want to do something |
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• Spelthorne is now less than six months away from becoming part of West Surrey Council • There remain a lot to be done to support the safe and legal transition to ensure a smooth commencement of activity by West Surrey in April 2027 • Equally, in order to, help close the substantial budget gap West Surrey is facing for 2027/28, there is a need for the Councils feeding into West Surrey to be identifying now collaborative transformation activity. With the right resources Spelthorne can play an important role in this. |
• On 1st April 2027 Spelthorne will cease to exist as a sovereign council and will pass its responsibilities across to West Surrey Council. There is less than 6 months remaining. It is critical that the process is effectively managed in order to seek to achieve best outcomes for residents, councillors and staff.
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This is what we want to do about it |
These are the next steps |
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• That the Council modifies the contract of the Head of LGR and Special Projects to allow up to 80 additional days of work supporting the LGR process between November and March 2027. |
• If approved, to commence procurement to modify the contract of the Head of LGR and Special Projects |
2. Key issues
2.1 West Surrey Council’s (WCS) Vesting Day is 1st April 2027, at which point Spelthorne and the 10 other sovereign district and borough councils across Surrey and Surrey County Council will cease to exist. That date is now less than six months away. In our context of Best Value commissioners, Government Directions, and LGR - the various interlocking agendas are high profile, complex and time sensitive. Everything we now do is in the context of transition to the new authority on 1st April 2027.
2.2 The Surrey Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) process is creating an increasing amount of workload across the Council with multiple Surrey-wide workstreams progressing activity. Equally with the commencement of the legal TUPE consultation by all 12 councils in Surrey, and the publication of the high-level structures for East and West, the new Councils are becoming more tangible. Ensuring that at a Surrey level the parallel workstreams are joined up, in order to coordinate resourcing and and to provide updates to staff is increasingly important.
2.3 In parallel, there is an increasing need to identify actions which will facilitate post Vesting Day transformation activity generating budget savings, which will help reduce West Surrey’s budget gap.
2.4 The post of Head of LGR and Special Projects was created in May and has been filled since beginning of June by Nick Cave. The post is fully funded by the corporate LGR budget. The original appointment was from June to October. The postholder has directly supported improvement work in housing and in leisure as well as coordinating our internal work on Local Government Reorganisation.
2.5 The earlier phase involved the Council, as did all the councils, in deploying many senior officers in the Surrey-wide organised programme for LGR. This has principally been concerned with identifying, collating and counting all the operational matters – from staff, salary structures, operational buildings, contracts, assets, finance, systems and so on with a focus on ensuring a safe and legal transition. This is more or less finished.
2.6 This work has moved into a new phase. The appointment of the permanent Chief Executive for West Surrey Council, along with the expanding activity of the WSC has triggered a shift away from Surrey-wide baseline preparation towards specific work towards WSC. The Chief Executives of the west councils have started to meet with the permanent Chief Executive and recently agreed to develop new strands of work on change and the transformation plans for the new authority.
2.7 There is now fresh activity to set up a programme for the next 6 months to prepare for Vesting Day. This will be characterised by cross authority working focused on plans for aggregation of district services and longer-term plans for the transformation of current arrangements to achieve combined unitary services.
2.8 This will involve participation of many managers at SBC, but we need to drive our work internally both to ensure strong promotion of Spelthorne and SBC issues in the unitary plans, but also to play our part fully in shaping the transformation plans over the next 6 months.
3. Options appraisal and proposal
3.1 Option 1 (Preferred): The proposal is to modify and extend the engagement of the Head of LGR and Special Projects to the end of March 2027. Contractually this amounts to an additional 80 days equating to an average of 4 days per week, from November 2026 to March 2027. This extension increases the total value of the contract beyond the authority delegated to officers (£100k) and therefore requires approval from Corporate Policy and Resources Committee. The proposed additional days can be fully funded by the LGR Budget within Corporate Policy and Resources. The postholder is procured through SOLACE via a framework.
3.2 Having the post extended will facilitate a key coordination process in the later stages of the LGR process. The key tasks the role would require are:
· To work with senior officers across the west Districts and Boroughs, and the County Council, to help develop a ‘West-wide’ plan for alignment, aggregation and transformation
· To work with colleagues across LA boundaries to explore opportunities for staff sharing and service support in the coming months as all move towards Vesting Day
· To establish an internal programme to engage with the next stages of preparation for transition to LGR
· To better manage resource deployment to the continuing elements of the wider Surrey LGR programme
· To support newly elected councillors to the Shadow authority, in representing Spelthorne interests in the early engagement processes
· To support staff development to engage well in later stages of LGR preparation and to make a success of their own role in transferring to WSC
· Review the current activity on communication and engagement aimed at:
· staff
· local community and business stakeholders
· explore and progress plans for marking the close down of Spelthorne Borough Council for councillors who will come to the end of their term, and staff who transfer.
3.3 Option 2: Approve the proposed procurement but with reduced number of days/hours - not recommended. A reduction in hours for the extended role would mean that all of the above tasks could be undertaken by the post holder and tasks would need to be prioritised with fewer undertaken, or some tasks passed on to other senior managers who are already under pressure with additional LGR related activity.
3.4 Option 3: Do not approve the proposed procurement to secure a modification of the Head of LGR and Special Projects contract - not recommended. This would mean that the tasks under 3.2 would need to be undertaken by other senior managers at a time when they are already under significant pressure as a result of managing additional LGR related activity. Risk would be a sub-optimal set of outcomes for the LGR process.
4. Governance and Risk Considerations
4.1 LGR along with the Improvement and Recovery Programme represents the most important area of activity for the Council at present. To ensure that it is managed appropriately, and progress reported to the Improvement and Recovery Board and Committee, it is key that it is appropriately resourced.
4.2 The risk if the post is not extended is that:
4.3 Aspects of the LGR processes are not appropriately managed resulting in sub-optimal outcomes for residents, councillors, and staff.
4.4 If the work outlined in 3.2 must be undertaken by other existing managers, this could result in sub-optimal delivery of business-as-usual services in the run-up to Vesting Day.
5. Financial implications
5.1 The proposed procurement is to procure up to an additional 80 days of output from the post holder. The day rate for the post holder is £1,000 plus there is an additional agency fee of approximately 19% equating to a day rate of £1,190 per day. Therefore 80 days would equate to an additional £95,200 (plus VAT which the Council will be able to recover). The original procurement for the post holder for period June to October was for up to £84k (excluding VAT). Extended value of the contract would therefore be £179k. There is currently £362k uncommitted budget in the LGR Budget within Corporate Policy and Resources Committee which will be used to cover the extra costs.
5.2 The original contract for the post holder was from June to October and was up to £84k equating 70 days. By extending the contract the total value of the contract (excluding VAT) equates to £179,000.
6. Legal comments
6.1 Under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 the Council has the power to do anything that is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of its functions. This includes activities such as procuring external professional advice and support, provided it supports the Council in fulfilling its statutory duties.
6.2 The Local Government (Contracts) Act 1997 enables the Council to enter into contracts for the provision of services, including external advice and support, as part of discharging their statutory functions.
6.3 General Power of Competence under the Localism Act 2011 allows the Council to do anything that individuals generally may do, unless explicitly prohibited by law. This power provides a broad basis for the Council to procure external advice and support.
6.4 The proposed procurement exercise must comply with the Council’s Contract Standing Orders and all applicable regulations. The proposed modification of the contract must be recoded in writing. Legal Services will assist throughout.
Corporate implications
7. Commissioners’ comments
7.1 Commissioners support the approach set out in this report which underpins the delivery of work on LGR, which is a core strand of the Improvement & Recovery Programme.
8. S151 Officer comments
8.1 The S151 Officer confirms that all financial implications have been taken into account and that the recommendations are fully funded from within the current year’s budget (the existing LGR budget).
9. Monitoring Officer comments
9.1 Provided the proposed procurement exercise and the modification of the contract are undertaken in accordance with the relevant legislation, the framework’s requirements, the Council’s Contract Standing Orders and governance processes, the Council has the necessary powers to implement the recommendations in this report.
10. Procurement comments
10.1 The proposed procurement is being presented to the Procurement Board who will confirm whether they are supportive on 8th October. The proposed procurement route is a direct award via the ESPO framework. Solace in Business Ltd is an approved supplier on the ESPO Strategic HR and Recruitment Services Framework (3S_26). As the total value of the extended contract at £178k is over £100k, Committee approval is required.
10.2 The Procurement Team will advise and assist throughout.
11. Equality and Diversity
11.1 Future housing in Spelthorne needs to ensure it meets the needs of all residents and addresses any particular requirements for those with protected characteristics. The delivery plan should take account of these in its recommendations.
12. Sustainability/Climate Change Implications
12.1 The procurement itself is not expected to have an impact on the Council's Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions. The role holder has the opportunity to ensure continuity between the Council’s strong climate change commitments and that of the newly emerging West Surrey Council. Therefore, the role holder can ensure that the implications of their role on sustainability and climate change are positive.
13. Other considerations
13.1 None identified.
14. Local Government Reorganisation Implications
14.1 Whilst Spelthorne is exempt from the S24 regime and does not require West Surrey Shadow Authority approval, the proposed procurement has been highlighted to the West Surrey Interim Section 151 Officer. The objective is to create appropriate capacity and strategic oversight of effective and successful transition to West Surrey Council.
15. Timetable for implementation
15.1 Once Committee have approved, the contract for the Head of LGR and Special Projects will be modified.
16. Contact
16.1 Terry Collier, Deputy Chief Executive: t.collier@spelthorne.gov.uk
Please submit any material questions to the Committee Chair and Officer Contact by two days in advance of the meeting.
Background papers: There are none.
Appendices:
None