Referendum called for over councils' joint working

Worthing Liberal Democrat group leader Bob Smytherman said this week: "Such an important decision to completely alter the structure of local government in the town should be the subject of a referendum."

Adur and Worthing councils are considering joining forces to provide services together, but keeping two separate councils.

Over the coming month, all staff will be able to comment on the project's business case, which sets out to maintain and improve services, but reduce the cost of providing them, while keeping the two areas separate and distinct.

Consultants Capita have been appointed to test and challenge the proposals. They have until the end of February to make their recommendations.

A report will be presented to members of both councils, who will decide in March whether to progress these ideas in more detail.

This report will look into major issues such as finance, local democracy, human resources and customer needs, and highlight the benefits and possible pitfalls.

If the proposal is adopted, work could start to merge some services later this year, with others being phased in over two years.

The two local authorities would then be managed by a single senior management team.

One issue is that in order for the partnership to work, Adur council would need to consider changing from its current committee system to a cabinet in line with Worthing council.

Adur council and Worthing council's interim chief executive, Ian Lowrie, said: "All we are doing at present is considering the high-level work we have done so far on this project.

"We need to be sure that this proposal will serve the customers of the two councils and reduce overheads before taking any major decisions. It is only right that we should do this thoroughly."

Mr Smytherman said: "As an opposition, the Liberal Democrat group are extremely concerned as to what would happen when the 'political' leadership of Worthing and Adur change and priorities are different.

"Worthing's Tory councillors seem hell-bent on getting this through before the local elections in May.

"We believe it is vital to work closer with Adur and other councils from West Sussex, including the county, to deliver better services at reasonable cost.

"The best interest of Worthing residents would not be best served by this 'back door' merger of both councils, neither will it provide better services or reduce council tax, and creating a single officer structure will lead to higher pension costs and redundancy pay-outs and cause political divisions, not just between parties, but personalities within the parties."