Medway Council transformation - digital lessons for UK’s new unitary authorities

The UK’s one year-old government ambitiously plans to modernize local government across the European nation by creating more unitary authorities. This will remove the existing twin layers of a county council and a more localized borough council with a single authority. There is much to be applauded in this plan; it will reduce duplication and should cut operating costs so that more of the funds go towards front-line services.

Unitary authorities are not new. Though few and far between in the UK. One such unitary authority is Medway Council in the north of Kent, the large county that stretches from the capital, London, down to the coast of France. Medway became a unitary authority back in 1998, when the Labour Party, as now, was a year into being the government and forging a modernization program across all areas of civic life. Medway Council and its CIO Paul Boyd have ...