A LATCO is a company owned wholly or partly by one or more local authorities
It can be used to deliver services, employ staff, hold assets, trade externally or generate income. The company is legally separate from the council, but the ownership relationship means it can remain deeply connected to public-service delivery and decision-making.
The acronym itself sounds more complicated than the idea.
A council decides that a service or activity should sit in a company rather than directly inside the authority. It creates or acquires a company, owns some or all of the shares, sets governance arrangements and then uses that company to deliver whatever purpose has been agreed.
That might involve waste, housing, leisure, building control, property, consultancy, IT, traded services or something much more specific.
LATCO, POCO, council company — what do the terms actually mean?
LATCO
Local Authority Trading Company. Usually a company wholly or partly owned by one or more councils. Some structures also involve joint ventures or other partners.
POCO
Public Organisation Company. This is not an official legal term — we made it up as a convenient way to describe companies owned by public organisations beyond councils.
That second distinction is important. Local authorities are far from the only public organisations that own companies. NHS organisations, universities, government bodies and other public-sector entities can also establish or hold interests in companies.
So while “LATCO” is useful for the local-government subset, Oscar needed a broader way to think about the rest of the picture.
“POCO” is Oscar Research terminology, not a statutory classification. If you are talking to lawyers, accountants or Companies House, do not expect it to appear as an official company type. We use it because the ownership relationship is useful to track.
Why do councils create trading companies?
There is no single answer. A company structure can offer a council different operational or commercial options from delivering the activity entirely inside the authority.
Common reasons include:
- delivering a service through an arm's-length structure;
- trading services with organisations outside the council;
- creating a clearer commercial or operational identity;
- holding or developing property and other assets;
- sharing a service between several authorities;
- creating a joint venture with another public body or a private partner;
- generating income that may ultimately benefit the shareholder authority;
- separating particular risks, contracts or workforces from the council's core structure.
None of those automatically means a company model is better. Current Local Partnerships guidance is explicit that councils should first assess whether an alternative delivery model is actually the right solution and should consider governance, commercial, operational and reputational risks before proceeding.
What can a LATCO actually look like?
| Model | Ownership | Typical implication |
|---|---|---|
| Wholly owned council company | One council owns 100% | Clear single-parent relationship, although the company remains a separate legal entity. |
| Multi-authority company | Two or more councils share ownership | Useful for shared services, but the parent hierarchy and governance become more complex. |
| Public-sector joint venture | Several public organisations | The company may sit across traditional organisational or geographic boundaries. |
| Public-private joint venture | Public body plus private partner | Ownership, control, commercial incentives and procurement relationships need to be understood separately. |
| Subsidiary structure | A public body owns a parent company which owns further companies | One apparent company can sit inside a wider group and may not be the operational entity a supplier needs. |
Why they are surprisingly difficult to identify
This was one of the more interesting parts of the original Oscar research project.
Companies House is essential, but it does not hand you a neat field saying “this company belongs to a local authority”. Annual reports and council accounts help, but descriptions, group structures and ownership arrangements vary enormously.
The work therefore becomes a combination of company research, public-body accounts, council reports and human interpretation — followed by linking the company back to the most meaningful parent organisation or organisations.
That last part sounds minor until a company is owned by several councils, another company, a joint committee or a mixed group of public shareholders.
For a supplier or researcher, knowing that a company exists is only half the job. You also need to know which public organisation owns it, whether there are several owners, what service it performs and where the relevant decision-makers sit.
How many publicly owned companies are there?
The original version of this article recorded 1,141 LATCOs and more than 1,600 public-body-owned companies in Oscar's research at the time it was written.
We are deliberately keeping that figure here as a historical snapshot rather than presenting it as a live 2026 count. These organisations are created, dissolved, merged and restructured over time, so the current database should be treated as the source for live coverage.
LATCO governance remains a live local-government issue
Councils continue to review, establish and govern wholly or partly owned companies. Current LGA and Local Partnerships guidance still treats LATCO oversight, shareholder governance and delivery-model assessment as active areas of local-government practice.
Why these companies matter to suppliers
If a council moves a service into a company, the people, budgets and procurement associated with that service may move with it.
That means a supplier relying only on a list of statutory councils can miss organisations that now:
- employ teams previously sitting inside the authority;
- buy goods and services in their own name;
- run operational assets;
- deliver services on behalf of one or more councils;
- hold their own senior management and board structure;
- trade beyond the original parent authority.
For sales, account planning and market analysis, that can materially change the addressable market.
Why they matter to public bodies too
LATCOs are not only relevant as customers. They can also be benchmarks.
One authority may look at another council's company when considering a new delivery model, property vehicle, traded service or shared-service arrangement. Performance, governance and commercial outcomes can therefore become useful intelligence for other public organisations exploring similar options.
Publicly owned companies are part of a much bigger structural trend
The reason Oscar became interested in these companies goes beyond company data.
Over time, public-service delivery has become increasingly distributed across organisations with different legal forms: statutory bodies, companies, charities, academy trusts, housing providers, contractors and joint ventures.
The legal shell can change while the public-service function continues.
That is why a useful public-sector database needs to understand both the formal body and the network of organisations around it.
How Oscar structures publicly owned companies
Where identified, Oscar can link publicly owned companies to relevant parent organisations and record characteristics such as organisation type, service, location and group relationships.
That makes it possible to move from questions such as “which councils exist?” to more useful ones such as:
- Which companies are owned by local authorities?
- What services do those companies deliver?
- Which authorities share ownership of the same company?
- Which publicly owned companies sit within a particular geography?
- Which named postholders or functions sit within those companies?