Panels of 12 existing county, district and borough councillors are to be formed to shape the future of Warwickshire's two new councils.

It was announced earlier this year that local government reorganisation would result in the county's six main authorities being abolished to form two new unitary councils, one for the north and one for the south.

The move will see the vast majority of council services delivered one authority in each area as opposed to being split across two levels of local government as they are now.

Further light was shed on how things will come together when the deputy chief executive of Stratford-on-Avon District Council Tony Perks provided an update to its overview and scrutiny committee this week.

He detailed how each of the new council patches – south Warwickshire will cover the current district areas of Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick, the north will cover the borough patches of Rugby, North Warwickshire and Nuneaton & Bedworth – would have its interim arrangements shaped by joint committees.

In the south, that will be made up of six county councillors and three elected members from each of the districts. In the north it will be six from the county and two from each of the three boroughs.

County chief executive Monica Fogarty will be the senior responsible officer with Stratford counterpart David Buckland and Nuneaton & Bedworth chief executive Tom Shardlow her deputies.

Together with councillors, they are set to develop "leader and cabinet" governance models, meaning the political leadership of the new councils are likely to be formed in a similar way to most of the authorities that are in place now – a leader elected by full council who then chooses their cabinet to lead on major service areas.

The only Warwickshire council operating differently to that is North Warwickshire Borough Council which works on a committee basis.

On top of that, they will recommend the appointments of interim officers to cover three legally-required posts – chief executive, finance lead and lead for law and governance.

Other work will see a draft code of conduct put together while also looking into things like councillor allowances and a constitution for the shadow authorities – the councillors elected in May 2027 to take charge of the new councils – to consider at their first meetings.

Those shadow authorities will then continue to develop those councils ahead of them taking full charge from April 2028.

"Their job is to start to prepare the vision and operating model, the real detail of how the council works, the ways of working, the policies and the budget for a go-live date of April 1, 2028," said Mr Perks.

"After those elections in May 2027, there is quite a lot of work to do to get things up and running."

Cllr Sarah Whalley-Hoggins asked which three councillors would be representing Stratford district.

Mr Perks said the decision had not been taken yet but agreed with scrutiny chair Cllr Trevor Harvey when he said he would "presume" that decision will be taken by the cabinet, the Liberal Democrat panel of councillors in charge of the district's major service areas.

If that is the case across the board, many eyes in the south will be looking at what comes out of the county council. It is run by Reform UK but only one of their 17 councillors – deputy leader Cllr James Crocker – represents a ward in the south.

Cllr Whalley-Hoggins later pressed further detail on decisions around the panels.

Mr Perks explained that the government initially suggested in May that each new council area would be represented by a joint committee of six county councillors and a total of four members from districts and boroughs. However, there was scope for councils to agree alternatives with the six-and-six model rubber stamped by national government in July.

Cllr Whalley-Hoggins replied: "Just to confirm, we knew in July that we were going to have six and six – three from here, three from Warwick – and we still don't know the representatives for Stratford district. Is that correct?"

"Yes," said Mr Perks. "I don't think there has been a formal decision on that."