Vicky Dutchburn, Interim Accountable Officer for the Kirklees Integrated Care Board (ICB), updated the Board on recent developments within the Integrated Care Board landscape. In summary, it was reported that there had been significant changes since the previous briefing and that work was now progressing at pace.
The Board was reminded that, at the last update, the process had been paused until the new financial year. However, in November 2025, the ICB was notified that the pause had been lifted and that the government expected the work to move forward.
The update will outline that the intention is not only to outline the changes taking place within the ICB but also to report on progress with ongoing work, alongside the continuation of business?as?usual activity. It was highlighted that although the organisation is undergoing significant change, work continues.
The Board was advised that the update would cover four key areas:
1) Organisational change
In relation to organisational change, this forms part of a much wider programme of change across the NHS, including NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. Although these wider changes will take place in due course, the ICB was required to go live and progress at pace.
As previously reported, across West Yorkshire, the organisation currently employs approximately 1,200 staff. The forthcoming changes will reduce this to around 600 posts, illustrating the scale of the organisational change required for the new structure.
Following the instruction in November that plans were to proceed, West Yorkshire took the decision to offer a voluntary redundancy scheme to all staff. This enabled the organisation to support colleagues while finalising the consultation documents for the proposed new structure. The voluntary redundancy scheme opened in November and closed at the beginning of December. In response, there has been a significant number of staff who have applied for voluntary redundancy and there are a significant number of staff who have been recommended for approval for voluntary redundancy. If those people take redundancy they will start exiting the organisation from next month.
Major organisational changes are expected to begin from next month. Some staff are still finalising their decisions regarding voluntary redundancy, and there are currently no firm figures available on the final impact. There remains however, a significant gap between the organisation’s current staffing position and the level required for the new structure.
On 14 January 2026, the organisation opened the formal consultation on the proposed new structure for staff. A dedicated webpage has been created to support this process, providing access to the full consultation documentation, including the proposed organisational structures and draft job descriptions.
A wide range of support and information has been provided to staff through the dedicated consultation webpage. The organisation is now partway through a 45?day consultation period. In parallel with this, any staff who were not successful in the first round of voluntary redundancy have the opportunity to appeal.
The ICB will have three core functions. It will be the Strategic Commissioner for West Yorkshire, Convenor of the Integrated Care System, and Integrator of providers and services:
Strategic Commissioner - the ICB will ensure that services are planned and delivered in a way that meets the needs of the population both now and in the future understanding inequalities and how they impact on service needs and utilisation. It involves a systematic approach to defining and measuring outcomes, using data and intelligence to make informed decisions about resource allocation and service delivery.
Convenor - the ICB will bring together all partners in the Integrated Care System to agree and deliver its five-year strategy and ensure delivery of local and national priorities by working together effectively and taking mutual responsibility for the results. It will co-ordinate the governance of the partnership and its wider arrangements for collaboration, within a framework of distributed leadership.
Integrator - Place-based integrator teams will assess population health risk and facilitate place provider partnerships to co-design new integrated models of care.
The Board was informed that the intention is to begin interviews from April this year. The formal consultation period will conclude at the end of February, followed by a two?week period of deliberation in early March. The final organisational structures will then be published, after which the executive team job descriptions will be advertised.
Recruitment to executive posts is expected to commence from the beginning of April, with subsequent recruitment for other staff groups taking place in stages through to the end of June. Each recruitment phase will have an approximate two?week application window; however, the executive director posts will have a shorter window of around one week, while bands 6 and 7 will have longer application periods due to the larger number of staff in those grades. The intention is for all interviews to be completed by the end of June. This timeline means that final staff exits whether through voluntary or compulsory redundancy will take place from July onwards.
From October, the new organisation will be fully implemented and will begin operating under the revised arrangements.
2) Place Provider Partnerships
The intention is that through 2026/27 the Place Provider Partnerships will operate in a shadow form. This will allow the system to establish the necessary governance arrangements, manage the transition of staff, and ensure that memoranda of understanding, contracts, and other required agreements are properly transferred and robust. This will support appropriate governance and due diligence with the providers who may ultimately lead these functions, recognising that final guidance from NHS England on the operating framework is still awaited.
From April 2027, the intention is for the new entities to be fully established, with contracts formally awarded to the relevant providers to enable the new arrangements to go live.
This work will also include close collaboration with local authorities and wider partners, with the intention of building on the strong partnership working already in place.
Alongside these developments, significant changes to governance arrangements will be required. Work is therefore underway to revise the current governance structures at both the West Yorkshire ICB level and at place, to ensure they remain fit for purpose within the new organisational framework.
At the West Yorkshire level, the Board will move to a smaller membership with a more streamlined committee structure. The intention is for these revised arrangements to come into effect from April 2026. Further changes will then be required between late 2026 and early 2027 to formalise the final constitutional elements, meaning the governance transition will follow a two?phase process.
In parallel, work continues on developing the place?based provider partnerships. As previously referenced, there is an intention to establish a Place Provider Partnership for Kirklees. Current providers within Kirklees are already working closely together to support the development of this model and to ensure readiness for the new arrangements.
3) Operational Planning 2026/27
The Board was informed that as in previous years, the organisational planning process from NHS England commenced over the Christmas period. Although it began a few weeks earlier than usual which offered some initial benefit, the process is still ongoing. Despite the earlier start, it is not expected to conclude any sooner, largely due to further changes introduced by NHS England to the planning requirements and approach for this year.
Providers are required to submit their organisational plans directly to NHS England this year, while ICBs must also produce their own separate plans. A key challenge identified is that ICBs are no longer receiving provider plans in advance, which prevents the usual triangulation of finance, activity, and capacity to ensure alignment across the system.
To mitigate this, the system has put its own mechanisms in place to maintain oversight and ensure plans are coherent. It was emphasised that, although submissions will go separately to NHS England, the system must still ensure internal alignment; otherwise, there is a risk of significant discrepancies emerging when plans are reviewed collectively by NHS England or in partnership discussions.
Work is ongoing to meet the required deadlines, and partners across the system continue to collaborate closely as this year’s approach carries a real risk of fragmenting long?established ways of working, particularly in how services are planned, delivered and coordinated. Without strong joint working, there is a potential to revert to siloed behaviours, however, partners have demonstrated continued commitment to working collectively, recognising the importance of maintaining cooperation and alignment during this period of significant organisational change.
4) Neighbourhood Health Plan
In relation to the development of the Neighbourhood Health Plans, The Board was informed that the intention remains for all nine planned Neighbourhood Health Teams to be operational by the end of the summer. Two additional teams went live in December, ahead of schedule, which was welcomed as a positive development. The programme continues to benefit from strong collaborative working across the system, supporting the effective implementation of the neighbourhood model.
The Board was informed that the neighbourhood teams are actively sharing learning across the different areas, which is helping to strengthen and accelerate progress. As a result, the programme remains on track to meet the planned timeline and may even progress ahead of schedule, reflecting both the pace at which teams wish to move and the commitment across the system. Non?recurrent funding has been allocated to support this development.
Organisational development support is also being provided to the neighbourhood teams to enable them to take the work forward sustainably. This continues to be a highly collaborative programme, with funding contributions drawn from a range of partners, not solely the ICB. For example, some of the case worker roles referenced are being supported through partner?secured funding.
This work has been delivered in close partnership with local authorities and community services, ensuring it is genuinely collaborative in approach. Further updates will be shared with the Board over the coming year, and more detailed information will be included in the Health and Wellbeing Plan.
RESOLVED:
That Vicky Dutchburn be thanked for providing an update on changes to the Integrated Care Board landscape and will continue to provide timely updates.