Norfolk County Council has received a "minded to" decision from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to replace the current two-tier system of county and district councils with three new unitary authorities: Greater Norwich City, East Norfolk, and West Norfolk.

The council had pushed for a single unitary authority, arguing that three separate bodies would be financially unsustainable and risk creating a postcode lottery in services such as Adult Social Care and Children's Services. The Leader of the Council, Cllr Kay Mason Billig, told the Strategic and Corporate Select Committee on 22 April that the "minded to" decision was not the one Norfolk had hoped for.

The total cost of implementing the three new authorities is estimated at around £50m, but the Government has allocated just £2.7m in funding — £900,000 per new authority. The Leader confirmed the full £2.7m will be held centrally by Norfolk County Council and distributed accordingly. Committee members warned that the remaining costs could ultimately be passed on to Norfolk taxpayers.

Councillors also raised concerns that splitting countywide services — including Adult Social Care, Children's Services, and Highways — into three separate sets of operations would require additional management teams, potentially making the new system more expensive to run than the current arrangement.

The committee unanimously recommended that Cabinet consider all options to keep services running, including shared service arrangements between the three new authorities. A similar approach has been taken in other parts of England undergoing reorganisation.

Staff welfare was also flagged as an urgent concern, with thousands of employees across county and district councils anxious about their futures. Officers confirmed that briefings, HR support, and change management training are being offered, though it remains unclear whether a full workforce framework will be in place by the end of Q3 of the 2026-27 financial year — a deadline members said was critical to preventing a "brain drain" of experienced staff.

Shadow authority elections are scheduled for May 2027, with Vesting Day — when the new councils formally take over — set for April 2028. The committee noted the tight timeframe and expressed concern about the volume of work required before that date.