SERVICES in Cherwell District Council could be shared with two other authorities, po-tentially saving £8.9m.

The authority has teamed up with South Northamptonshire District Council and Stratford-on-Avon District Council to merge services it provides to residents.

It hopes the expected savings will prevent job losses and service cuts in the future.

The councils have yet to decide what services could be shared, but Cherwell District Council leader Barry Wood said these could be “any and all”.

The district council provides recycling, leisure centres and community transport, among other services.

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Mr Wood said: “We know that local government is in the firing line for more reductions and we take it as practical reality. So it is up to us to find a solution.

“People may say on the one hand it is obvious and some would say it is overdue in local government, the novelty of working together.

“We are exploring something different and new.”

Sharing work among departments of the three councils could save Cherwell alone £8.9m in total over a ten-year period.

He added another £3.2m could be saved by the council over the next decade if the three authorities went on to ‘buy in’ further serivces together.

This latter idea is yet to be agreed upon by the three authorities.

Cherwell District and South Northamptonshire councils have already started sharing work, with a joint management team introduced in 2011.

According to Cherwell, this has saved the council more than £3m annually. The councils now want to expand this scheme to include other areas of their work.

Mr Wood added: “We are confident we have a good basis to go forward with.

“We have seen these changes coming for some time and councils have been careful to employ people. All of these models will lead to reorganisation but we want to avoid redundancies as much as we can.”

Councils are increasingly looking at ways to save money ahead of continued cuts in the cash they receive from the Government.

Figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government yesterday revealed plans to cut Cherwell’s revenue support grant by £1.151m next year.

South Northamptonshire Council leader Mary Clarke said: “We need to think ‘outside of the box’ and consider new and different ways of working to preserve and protect the future of our district, as well as remaining financially solvent when the Government’s revenue support grant begins to decrease.”

 


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