A “VIRTUAL” union of the county’s local authorities could be created to save money, a council leader has claimed.

Oxfordshire County Council leader Ian Hudspeth said it was the fourth option in the debate about whether all six councils in the county should merge.

He added that it could see all the councils share staff and administration costs, but retain their own front offices.

At the moment, there are four district councils, Oxford City Council and the county council.

In January, all the other council leaders told Mr Hudspeth they were strongly against merging into a single authority.

Mr Hudspeth said: “You have to look at all the options and there is a virtual option 4, where each council maintains a front office and then backroom operations are done together.

“We do not know what is going to happen [after the General Election] and it might well be that the new Government will be looking at different ways to try and save money.”

There would be the same number of councillors.

His comments came after the county council published a report earlier this year, by auditors Ernst and Young, which claimed merging Oxfordshire’s councils could save £33m a year.

At the moment, there is a two-tier system of local government, with the county council offering different services to the city council and four district councils.

As reported in the Oxford Mail, the four leaders of West Oxfordshire, Cherwell, South Oxfordshire and Vale of the White Horse district councils have ruled out a single authority for all services.

They instead favour sharing the costs of services, or other options from the report, such as having three unitary councils.

A third option was a “doughnut” unitary council made up of the districts, with a city unitary council in the middle.

Mr Hudspeth said a reorganisation of local government was essential to tackle future funding pressures: “I have had conversations with the other leaders and they have said [a single authority] is not going to happen.

““The other councils think it is about the county council trying to take over, but this is actually about the fact we are facing rising costs in social services and children’s services.”

Oxford City Council leader Bob Price said reorganisation was not being proposed by any major party.

He said: “We think a city unitary council on its current boundaries is viable, but local authority restructures are not on the agenda of any major parties at the moment.”