ICS.AI launches AI reorganisation tool for councils

ICS.AI has launched an AI-based local government reorganisation product for councils in England, aimed at cutting transition time by up to 30% as authorities prepare for the move to new unitary councils.

The launch comes as England’s two-tier council structure is due to be replaced by single authorities. Around 200 county and district councils are set to be abolished and replaced by unitary authorities. The change will affect 20 million residents, and newly formed councils must be fully operational by April 2028.

That timetable gives councils two years to combine workforces, policies, data and technology systems into new organisations. Comparable reorganisations have historically taken five years, putting pressure on local authorities to complete more of the integration work before the new bodies formally begin operating.

Tight Timetable

The product, called SMART: Day One LGR Accelerator, is aimed at local government teams managing the transition. It focuses on four areas that often consume significant time in council mergers: resident contact services, workforce planning, transition oversight and the reshaping of legacy technology estates.

For resident services, the software is intended to create a single point of contact across phone, web and digital channels before the new authority goes live. The goal is to resolve differences in terminology, policy and back-end systems across merging councils in advance, rather than relying on a public-facing layer over older processes.

For workforce planning, the product automates data gathering and reconciliation across merging councils, allowing transition teams to model the target workforce structure earlier. It also includes what ICS.AI calls an LGR Command Workbench for programme oversight and an AI Application Forge intended to extract functions from legacy systems into a consolidated environment before vesting day.

The backdrop is a reorganisation programme under significant financial pressure. ICS.AI said the cost of local government reorganisation is estimated at more than £30 million for each area, while government capacity funding is less than £1 million per area.

Lessons From Mergers

Past reorganisations have shown the risks of leaving deeper systems integration until after launch. In earlier council mergers, public-facing services such as websites, phone numbers and branding were often ready on day one, but the internal systems and processes behind them remained fragmented for years.

ICS.AI cited Somerset Council as an example of the complexity facing transition teams as they combined organisations with different systems, cultures and working practices while working to a fixed political deadline. According to the company, those conditions meant many of the more difficult tasks could only begin once the new authority was already live.

The company argues that the same structural issues now apply across England, but on a shorter timetable. That has implications not only for technology integration, but also for financial control, governance and service continuity during the handover.

Governance Issue

ICS.AI also highlighted a separate challenge around the use of artificial intelligence inside councils during the reorganisation process. It said staff are already turning to consumer AI tools to manage additional workloads alongside their existing duties, raising concerns about controls, auditability and data handling at a time when accuracy matters.

Its approach includes an AI Target Operating Model intended to provide governance from the start of the programme and keep AI use controlled and auditable during transition work.

Martin Neale, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ICS.AI, said: “Previous reorganisation council teams did extraordinary work under enormous pressure, but they were limited to standing up the ‘basics’ for day one and leaving the deep integration for afterwards. That’s what drove years of remediation cost and service disruption. AI changes the equation. It lets councils do in weeks what previously took years. But the window is the transition itself. If councils wait until after vesting day, they’ll face the same multi-year, multi-million pound integration challenge as their predecessors. Only with less time and less money to fix it.”

Beyond the reorganisation product, ICS.AI said its platform has been used by Derby City Council to identify £12 million in savings. It also said it has handled 2.9 million resident enquiries for the authority, with a 56% call deflection rate and a 94% reduction in misdirected calls.

The company added that it provides AI front-door deployments for 62% of UK councils that have adopted that model, giving it a sizeable footprint in the local government market as authorities face a compressed and costly restructuring process.