Local Government Reorganisation Briefing Sessions for Suffolk Businesses
You may be aware that the Government has instigated two separate, but linked, reforms for our area.
Firstly, devolution of some powers from Whitehall to a Norfolk and Suffolk Mayoral Combined Authority and secondly, underneath that tier, the abolition of the current two-tier council structure and their replacement with a smaller number of unitary authorities, Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).
Suffolk County Council is proposing to Government that a single council covering the whole of the county be created, whilst the districts and boroughs prefer a three- council solution.
Suffolk Chamber of Commerce has been actively engaged in advocating that the interests of the county’s business community must be at the forefront of these new unitary authorities, regardless as to their final number.
Suffolk Chamber believes it is important that business leaders are able to actively contribute to the debate and so evaluate the respective merits of the two LGR ‘bids’.
Whilst remaining strictly neutral between the two unitary authority ‘bids’, your Chamber has established some key principles which members may find useful in the evaluation process. These can be found at the end of this communication.
Suffolk County Council has arranged for two engagements sessions with businesses and we are pleased to share these details with you:
Virtual session
Date: Friday 1 August 2025, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location: Online (Microsoft Teams)
In-person session
Date: Tuesday 26 August 2025, 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Endeavour House, 8 Russell Road, Ipswich, IP1 2BX
These sessions are expected to be popular, and spaces are limited, so don’t delay in booking your place.
Suffolk Chamber of Commerce’s LGR principles:
• Greater efficiency: with a reduction in the number of councils, and through prudent investment in new technologies, we would expect ongoing efficiencies to be realised in back-office functions and therefore greater investment in improvements in relevant day-to-day business-facing functions, including planning, environmental health and licensing.
• Better economic development delivery: LGR in Suffolk offers an opportunity to reformat existing economic development functions to align better with the ambitions of the Suffolk Business Board, achieve greater countywide impact through better cross-border coordination and improved involvement of business representative organisations, such as Suffolk Chamber, in delivering key programmes and projects.
• SME-friendly procurement: LGR in Suffolk affords a chance to both standardise and reset local councils’ procurement policies and approaches in order to give greater weighting to social value criteria and boost the Suffolk SME circular economy, including via closer cooperation with the Suffolk Supply Chain.
• Forums for Suffolk-wide collaborative working: we would expect that the broadly collaborative culture across the public sector in working with Suffolk Chamber and other business representative organisations, such as the Suffolk Business Board and the Suffolk Public Sector Leaders’ Group be continued and further improved upon to ensure that the needs and experiences of businesses are central to the new councils’ delivery plans.
• Advocacy alignment: furthermore, we would expect that the political and managerial leadership in any Suffolk unitary system remains aligned with the evidenced countywide economic advocacy asks of Government coming out of Suffolk Chamber’s The Suffolk Convention 1 summit last year (and subsequent summits) and ensures an effective and coherent relationship with the North & Suffolk Mayoral Combined Authority.
Suffolk County Council has two sessions for businesses planned on their proposals for a single Suffolk unitary. We understand that the boroughs and districts will also be planning some sessions for businesses promoting their three-unitary proposal, and details of those dates will be forthcoming.
If you have any questions about these sessions, please contact:
Paul Simon - paul@suffolkchamber.co.uk
Head of Public Affairs at Suffolk Chamber of Commerce
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Suffolk Chamber