One in three local authority finance leaders may leave payment and income-system planning too late in England’s local government reorganisation, raising the risk that revenue collection, citizen experience, and financial stability are treated as secondary concerns during one of the largest restructurings of councils in decades.
New research from Access PaySuite, part of The Access Group, found that three in ten finance leaders are only mapping payment and income systems mid-programme, retroactively, or not at all. The company surveyed 100 finance leaders working in local authorities and also conducted focus groups with unitary authority leaders and industry experts.
Local Government Reorganisation will merge two-tier county and district councils into new unitary authorities responsible for all local services. The new structures are due to go live in April 2028, giving councils less than two years to align governance, service delivery, technology, data, payments, income management, and resident-facing processes.
The research found that 89% of local authority finance leaders admit legacy IT systems dictate their transformation strategy, rather than strategy driving technology choices. Forty per cent cited inflexibility among incumbent software providers and vendor lock-in as a primary barrier to integrating disparate legacy systems.
The findings also show the pressure of competing priorities. Access PaySuite said 96% of finance leaders surveyed reported struggling to balance financial stability with citizen experience. That tension is particularly acute because councils rely on income streams such as council tax and rent collection while arrears are already high.
Council tax arrears in England have reached £7.4bn, while social housing rental arrears stand at £655m. Fragmented income systems risk pushing those figures higher if authorities enter reorganisation with weak visibility, inconsistent payment routes, or poor integration across former district and county functions.
Jamie Symons, head of product and engineering at Access PaySuite, said: “This is a major piece of research which highlights common themes that are troubling finance leaders as they progress through the LGR transformation process.”
He added that focus groups with local authorities that had already navigated reorganisation identified income management as a key obstacle when it was introduced too late. One authority said payments were only introduced to the programme six months in, after decisions had already been made. Another said implementing a new finance system on day one was its biggest avoidable mistake.
The digital challenge is structural. A typical local government area may be bringing together multiple councils with different revenue systems, payment providers, customer records, debt management practices, service lines, and reporting processes. If income management is not mapped early, councils may create a unitary authority that is legally operational on day one but commercially inefficient from the start.
Payments are where residents and businesses experience council systems most directly. Council tax, parking, licensing, planning fees, garden waste, social housing rent, adult social care charges, leisure services, and other local payments all rely on income infrastructure. Weak integration can lead to confusing journeys, duplicated contact, avoidable arrears, reconciliation problems, and slower cash collection.
Georgina Maratheftis, associate director for local public services at techUK, said: “For those who have been through LGR in the past, there tends to be a gap between the digital ambition and vision and the digital maturity of the council.”
She added: “You don’t want to be creating the legacy of tomorrow.”
Many transformation programmes naturally prioritise statutory continuity. Social care, waste, payroll, HR, case management, and democratic governance often dominate early planning because authorities must be safe and legal on day one. Income management can appear less visible until payment failure, reconciliation gaps, or arrears expose the weakness.
Andrew Rogers, a Socitm associate with more than three decades of local authority digital transformation experience, said LGR was “a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to think about things differently.”
That opportunity will be lost if reorganisation simply stitches together existing systems under a new authority boundary. Councils that use LGR to redesign income management early could improve collection, reduce administrative duplication, and deliver a simpler resident experience. Those that defer payment planning may inherit avoidable complexity at the moment they most need financial control.
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