Thursday 3rd February 2011

Two Councils in the area have today confirmed that they are looking into the possibility of combining some of their resources in order to provide a cost cutting service for residents.

Discussions between Bolsover and North East Derbyshire District councils to complete what's being termed as a 'strategic alliance' by merging their senior managers and joining up their services are said to be at an advanced stage and in line to save £1.5M.

Any decision made to formalize the arrangement will be made in early March.

If the councils do form an alliance with a joint Chief Executive and Senior Management Team, they will then begin to look at how shared services could bring on board further savings.

The councils stress that they would retain their individual identities and political and geographical administrative areas. They would continue to provide the same types of services and would not seek to form a 'unitary' council.

In a joint statement, the leaders of the two councils, Eion Watts of Bolsover District Council and Graham Baxter MBE of North East Derbyshire District Council, said: "This would be a natural alliance of two excellent authorities that border each other and offer similar services, to a very high standard.

"Over recent years we have been working more closely to share some services, pool expertise and save money. The latest phase of this collaboration took place in January when we launched our joint ICT service.

"Establishing a more formal and strategic alliance could help ensure that essential services to local communities - some of which are amongst the most deprived in the UK - will be protected in the face of the massive spending cuts forced on us by the coalition government.

"We have not been able to control the huge scale of the government-imposed cuts, but we can control how we meet the challenges ahead. Forming an alliance would be a way to ensure we continue to provide excellent services whilst delivering big savings for local people."

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