COULD Taunton Deane and West Somerset councils merge to form one council?

This week both councils held special scrutiny meetings to discuss transformation options, which will be decided upon at the end of the month.

The council officers have worked since March to create a report outlining three options for the future of the two councils: the first option is to remain as they are with one team of council officers working jointly between two councils, the second option is a full merger where there would be one new council to represent both areas, or the third option to go their separate ways and run two separate councils with two teams of officers.

Taunton Deane Borough Council faces a budget gap affected by its choice to follow a growth agenda, but has more financial flexibility than cash-strapped West Somerset District Council who need transformation to remain viable at all.

Director of operations for both councils, Shirlene Adam, highlighted that from a purely financial perspective, the option to merge would be best, saving an extra £500,000 a year compared to keeping two councils running.

As part of the savings made, cuts of 22 per cent will need to be made to employment costs. This will come from a combination of pay cuts and redundancies, the number of which cannot yet be confirmed.

Both options one and two would see a large amount of investment in the councils' IT services and website, making it much more manageable for people to use.

Chief executive Penny James emphasised that the council needed to become more 'customercentric', with the new structure meaning someone who wanted to open a new business could come and talk to one agent who would then deal with the individual departments as opposed to the current structure where the client would deal with each department separately.

Both council leaders, John Williams and Anthony Trollope-Bellew have indicated they prefer a full merger, however in Taunton Deane 14 councillors have signed a letter outlining concerns with this plan.

The letter reads: "First of all, this is far more than business. It is about people, jobs and most of all the fundamental democratic rights of voters to choose how to spend and raise their taxes for the local community. WSDC already enjoys 50 per cent more councillors per capita than TDBC which will only make democracy even more biased in favour of the rural areas.

"Secondly, it will be the end of TDBC, and most likely the further subjugation of Taunton as the County Town and its influence in the South West. There is a danger that Taunton Deane will lose its mayoralty.

The letter also raises concerns about Taunton Deane's resources acting as a subsidy to prop up West Somerset.

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At the West Somerset meeting, Cllr Bruce Heywood questioned whether the changes would affect democracy.

"This transformation encourages further delegation of tasks, a lower quantity of meetings which would mean less scrutiny of decisions, turning much of our work into a rubber stamping exercise. I am concerned that is nothing short of eroding democracy," Cllr Heywood said.

However Cllr Trollope-Bellew said that the current democracy with scrutiny, cabinet and full council meeting monthly could be streamlined.

Both councils will make a final decision at meetings on Tuesday, July 26.