Vesting day has arrived. Northern Ireland's 11 new authorities have come into being. The 26 old authorities are in the past and staff have been transferred. Job done and time to sit back and relax. Or is it?

April may be the start of a new era for local government in Northern Ireland – with larger councils with expanded powers finally in place 13 years after the Review of Public Administration first began. But, as with any significant change process, theory and experience tells us that when you break an organisation's existing cultural mould, it takes a long time to create new shared values. So it may take a good few years before organisation-wide cultures are properly embedded within the new authorities.