Clive Jones describes how merging five councils into one unitary authority led to a streamlined revenues and benefits service with potential savings of around £725,000 and improved services

T hey say every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. In fact, creating a new unitary council from five legacy councils presented multiple challenges for Buckinghamshire Council – some we expected, and others we didn’t.

While we knew bringing together each of the separate entities along with their own systems, processes and ways of working was never going to be easy, what we didn’t know was that it would take place in the midst of the Covid pandemic.