Council trio's sharing plan could save £2m

Arun, Chichester and Horsham are considering sharing human resources, legal and internal auditing services, while Chichester and Arun could also work together on customer services, revenues and benefits and information and communication technology.

Cabinet members will discuss the options in July.

Chichester District Council leader Tony Dignum said: “In the current economic climate we have to constantly look for new ways to make savings. This approach has been successfully adopted by many councils across the country and is tried and tested.

“This project offers us an opportunity to explore how we can work more closely with our partners in order to continue to deliver quality services, while also delivering best value for our council taxpayers.”

A detailed plan will be drawn up by the end of the year if councillors give the green light.

The councils believe sharing services will make them more efficient, offering better value to residents.

Horsham leader Ray Dawe said: “Many councils are already involved in sharing services in some form or other and it makes sense for us to further this process wherever we can.

“We have identified these particular services as areas where we believe we can maintain existing service levels, increase resilience and save money in these times of significant change in local government.

“At the same time we shall continue to look at other areas where we can achieve a similar result.”

Arun leader Gill Brown said the plans could ‘improve services, increase resilience and save money in times of significant change for all public services’.

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