The Best Way to Prepare for LGR: Software for Revenues and Benefits Teams

The current landscape for Revenues and Benefits teams

With the first wave of unitarisation set to begin in little over a year and continue across 2027 and 2028, Revenues and Benefits teams face an unprecedented convergence of structural change, integration complexity and the everyday pressures of managing increasingly complex workloads against tightening resources. From all the reforms occurring, from Universal Credit (UC) to shifts in Housing Benefits, a sustainable strategy will be central to success during this time to deliver accelerated operational efficiency: moving beyond administrative roles to empower financial innovation and risk management for more resilient services.

Drawing on exclusive sector insights, practitioner interviews, and real-world case studies, the whitepaper examines how the LGR timeline is intensifying pressure on Revenues and Benefits services and teams that will be critical to ensuring seamless revenue collection through and beyond transition.

The report highlights the key operational and strategic challenges facing councils as reorganisation accelerates:

• System integration and dealing with multiple legacy platforms: merging authorities must consolidate disparate technology estates before go-live
• Harmonisation of policy and process: aligning service standards, charging regimes, and operational protocols across predecessor councils
• Facing up to the trust issue: overcoming resident scepticism during periods of organisational uncertainty
• Rebuilding resident confidence and belief: maintaining service continuity and communication clarity throughout transition
• Overcoming an aversion to innovation: balancing the safe delivery of LGR with the opportunity for modernisation

With growing resident demands and pressures from LGR, Revenues and Benefits teams will play an important role in building financial resilience and improving resident services.

Introducing the READY framework

In response to these pressures, our whitepaper introduces the “READY” framework – a practical model designed to help councils build operational resilience during reorganisation and beyond. The READY framework succeeds through team integration, not isolation.

Built around five pillars: “Resilience,” “Engagement”, “Automation”, “Diverse communications,” and a “Yes culture,” the framework offers a structured approach to modernising revenue collection whilst improving resident experience during a period of significant change.

• Resilience and scalability: strengthening operational capacity so teams can manage rising caseload complexity and organisational transition simultaneously.
  
  
• Engagement: adopting communication approaches that build trust and encourage early, constructive response from residents – particularly important when Local Authority branding and structures are in flux.

• Automation: reducing manual workload through consistent, intelligent processes that free staff to focus on complex cases and integration activity.
  
  
• Diverse communications: using a richer mix of channels and data-led insights to reach residents effectively, regardless of which legacy authority area they are in.

• Yes culture: fostering a mindset of flexibility, problem-solving, and positive resident outcomes during reorganisation and beyond.

Voicescape’s Position on LGR

Gary Haynes, Managing Director at Voicescape, comments:

"With detailed planning for the creation of a wave of new unitary authorities up and down the country now well underway, there are certainly tests ahead. But LGR also provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact real, necessary change.

"Reorganisation provides unique justification and permission for addressing long-standing inefficiencies – replacing fragmented systems, eliminating communication approaches that can unintentionally be perceived as adversarial, and enabling approaches that reflect the increasing complexity of residents' lives.

The ambition behind our new report is to reframe the question from 'can we get through LGR?' to 'how we leverage LGR to emerge stronger?'"

Claim your free copy of our READY framework

Our ‘Readiness is Resilience’ whitepaper, containing our full guide to implementing our READY framework, is available to download free now.

In our whitepaper, we additionally cover the macro forces reshaping Local Government and the need for Revenues and Benefits operations to require innovation and harmonisation across multiple areas: from policy and process to Council Tax. Discover why reorganisation must be a catalyst for rebuilding trust with real case studies and research to support our findings.

Discover the top management products for Local Government restructuring with Voicescape, a trusted and award-winning provider to the public sector.

Interested in discovering how Voicescape can scale services elsewhere in your council in preparation for LGR? Read our latest LGR blog for Housing teams here.