The shake-up of Warwickshire's councils is set to be led by the man who oversaw the formation of two unitary authorities in Cumbria. 

John Metcalfe was named as the government's choice for Warwickshire's "lead official" on local government reorganisation by Stratford-on-Avon District Council's chief executive David Buckland this week.

Mr Metcalfe spent almost 25 years with Isle of Wight Council, climbing to the top to spend six years as chief executive before taking the same post at Cumbria County Council. He then led on turning one county and six district or borough councils into two unitary authorities. 

It was a protracted process with Cumbria County Council, in favour of one unitary, twice requested a judicial review of the government's decision – taken by Robert Jenrick MP when the Conservatives were in charge – only to see them batted away by the courts.

Those experiences could be particularly relevant with similar battle lines drawn over the best way to rejig Warwickshire's political map.

Services currently delivered across two levels of local government in Warwickshire – the county council supported by five districts or boroughs – are to be handled through one structure from April 2028 under national government proposals.

Warwickshire has two options on the table – the preference of Warwickshire County Council and Rugby Borough Council is for one new county-wide council to deliver all services, although they differ on how to get there. Stratford and Warwick district and Nuneaton & Bedworth and North Warwickshire borough councils are calling for a north-south split. 

Arguments over the pros and cons have rumbled on since Westminster put forward the plans in December 2024 with the Cumbria model cited as an example during Warwickshire's debate. 

The current national government would prefer new council areas to have a population of 500,000 or more. Warwickshire has more than 600,000 people with neither the north nor the south close to the target by itself. 

However, Cumbria – albeit in a more remote location – was granted permission for two unitaries at a time when neither of its new council patches had populations of 300,000, the government target at that time.

Addressing Stratford's overview and scrutiny committee – a panel of councillors that oversees and makes non-binding recommendations on the council's work – Mr Buckland revealed: "We have now been allocated a lead official. It is not actually an employee, it is an adviser they have taken on.

"John was previously the chief executive at Cumbria County Council so absolutely has the T-shirt on the journey through local government reorganisation."

Noting that the chief executives of all six Warwickshire councils are set to meet at the county's headquarters, Shire Hall in Warwick, on Friday, January 30, "in preparation for the transition", Mr Buckland added that Mr Metcalfe had "helpfully given us a crib sheet on the kind of activity we can be getting on with" ahead of the government's decision on one or two unitaries.

"It is effectively working on the building blocks of what we need to put together without knowing at this point what kind of house we are building," he added.

The update included that the two-unitary plan has support from five out of six of Warwickshire's MPs "and support from the mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority".

Mr Buckland confirmed the government remained "absolutely committed" to new councils being in place by April 2028 in all 20 areas affected with a decision on Warwickshire's model expected just before parliament rises in July 2026.

"I would hope that if there is any slippage (on timescales) that we would understand them at that point," he added.

From there, existing councils are "likely to establish workstreams" related to key administrative functions like finance, service transition and transformation, governance, contracts, human resources and IT.

Councils are also preparing to set budgets for the financial year 2026-27 with Stratford planning to allocate an extra £1 million to ensure enough capacity is there to get the necessary work done while maintaining services.

"We do need to provide some dedicated project support to this," said Mr Buckland. "It is a massive undertaking."

Panel chair Councillor Andy Crump (Con, Southam East, Central & Stockton) asked what was behind that figure and whether it would be enough.

"I really hope so," Mr Buckland replied.

"It is for things like lawyers, accountants, HR staff. What we will probably do is deploy some of the council's existing staff to the local government reorganisation project and then backfill with staff coming in from outside the organisation.

"We expect to have to spend a big part of that on project management support. We will be having conversations with our district and borough chief executives, and of course Monica Fogarty (chief executive) from the county council, to hopefully hone that a bit but we had to put an amount into this emerging budget to help with that. 

"That will go through the budget monitoring process if it is approved by council."