SENIOR councillors look set to join forces to create a new task group that will help two councils make their services more efficient.The Journal can today reveal that Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Council have proposed the unveiling of a new joint partnership board as part of the latest link between the two.

SENIOR councillors look set to join forces to create a new task group that will help two councils make their services more efficient.

The Journal can today reveal that Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Council have proposed the unveiling of a new joint partnership board as part of the latest link between the two.

This joint cabinet task group, which has already been given the go-ahead by Suffolk Coastal's cabinet, is set to be considered by Waveney's cabinet next Thursday (November 19).

This new board will be a politically balanced joint task group of the two cabinets that will make recommendations to each cabinet.

Mark Bee, Waveney District Council leader, said: 'This new board, if approved by Waveney's cabinet, would be made up of councillors from both authorities and backed up with a special team of officers. It would lead the drive to closer working between ourselves and Suffolk Coastal, a partnership which is justifiably already earning national attention.'

Echoing these sentiments, Ray Herring, leader of Suffolk Coastal, said: 'This is the next big step forward after our agreement to make Waveney our preferred partner when it comes to seeing what services we can share to make ourselves even more efficient in future. We need to have in place a way to assess where more joint working would be appropriate and how it can be put in place in a way that maximises potential savings while safeguarding the quality of the services to our customers.'

With various shared services already in place, the council's share a chief executive - Stephen Baker - and a head of planning services.

Next Thursday's recommendation to the cabinet is:

A joint cabinet task group working as a joint partnership board be established with Suffolk Coastal District Council, comprising 12 members.

The leader of each council appoints their own group members and seeks a nominee from the opposition to be members of the joint partnership board.

Delegated authority be given to the chief executive to allocate up to �80,000 from Waveney District Council's earmarked reserves over two years, to appoint specialist support for the programme.

Protocols be prepared setting out the process for bringing projects to the partnership board.