Essex Councils Back Five-Unitary Plan as Key to Fixing Adult Social Care

Essex councils say reorganisation could help fix adult social care – if done right Councils supporting the five-unitary proposal for Essex say that local government reorganisation (LGR) offers a rare opportunity to build a stronger, more preventative adult social care service – but only if the scale and structure is right.

The leaders of ten district and city councils say the changes could help shift adult social care towards prevention, independence and meaningful community-based support. According to the proposal Creating a Local Future for Greater Essex, each new council would serve a population of around 326,000 to 510,000 people. The plan is based on independent analysis, including from CIPFA and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), whose analysis showed that authorities of this size are large enough to sustain specialist services but small enough to keep decision making and commissioning close to local need.

The report argues that this scale would make councils “better positioned to coordinate care, reduce demand pressures and promote wellbeing” by enabling access to local markets and joining up the functions that most directly influence independence. Councillor Daniel Cowan, Leader of Southend City Council and chair of the five-unitary group, said,

“The case for unitaries of this size is clear. The Government has said that local councils must reorganise to save money and make services simpler for the residents who rely on them, and the most local approach best achieves this for social care. Five Essex unitaries give us the structure and scale to coordinate housing, care, health and community services around people’s lives, and to reduce customers’ need to resort to adult social care in the first place. This isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about empathy. When councils are the right size, they can build trusted relationships with the people and partners who serve the public on the frontline and who make prevention possible.”

The independent options appraisal behind the proposal estimates potential recurring net savings of up to £104 million once the new authorities are established. The five-unitary group argues that in comparison to other approaches to LGR, smaller, more locally connected unitaries with more evenly spread transition risks would be better able to reinvest those savings directly into early-help programmes, local commissioning and community-based support.

Supporters say the current system of county and district councils separates services like housing and leisure from social care, creating gaps that make it harder to focus on prevention and early help. Under the proposed five-unitary plan, each authority would bring those functions together, allowing housing officers, social workers and community teams to work within one organisation.

Smaller-scale unitaries would also be able to work more closely with local care agencies, social enterprises and voluntary groups. This reduces reliance on large national contracts, keeping resources rooted in local communities and local priorities. The model draws on successful approaches in areas such as Greater Manchester, where unitary councils have achieved measurable improvements in adult social care outcomes through closer integration with health, housing and voluntary sector partners.

Of all the options on the table for Essex, the five unitaries’ proposed populations of 300,000 to 500,000 are closest to the Manchester borough scale. While Essex’s ageing population will continue to drive costs upwards, with the county’s over-65 population projected to rise 27% by 2035, the report concludes that structural reform provides an opportunity for long-term change.

“This is about building the conditions for reform,” says Cllr Cowan. “If we get the scale and design right, Essex can lead the way in making social care more sustainable, more humane and more local.”