WAVERLEY Borough Council is in talks with Guildford and Woking councils over the possibility of merging the three boroughs, if reorganisation of local authorities is forced through by the government. The government is currently gathering information and opinions, before devising proposals for inclusion in a White Paper due to be published in June. Councils have been told that participation in the process is voluntary, but there is a general fear that, once the White Paper is out, they will be left with just 12 weeks to make their case or have unadvantageous changes forced upon them. Council leader Gillian Ferguson, who is playing a prominent role in the discussions, explained: "We are not proposing anything yet, we are just preparing the ground. "It's purely a contingency plan in case, in June, we are told 'put in your bid or else this will happen to you'. A 12-week deadline is frighteningly quick. The government say you can choose, but there isn't much of a choice." With other council leaders, Miss Ferguson recently attended a meeting with local government minister David Milliband. The main facts that have so far emerged are that reorganisation should not breach county boundaries and that changes must be self- financing. Miss Ferguson sees Waverley as being in a dangerous position as, because it has four main centres of community, it could be broken up and merged with various authorities. In particular, borough and councillors have expressed their concern that, having already fought and won one battle against becoming part of the Blackwater Valley region, that possibility should not re-emerge. Miss Ferguson said that partnerships with Guildford Borough Council over some services were already well-developed and there was scope for more partnership and sharing to provide a smoother, more cost-effective service without the authorities having to merge. "Some sort of areas of unification are in the public interest. The more detailed case we put forward, the more chance we have to get local proposals agreed without having this imposed," she said.

l WAVERLEY Borough Council was this week expected to take a step towards finally fulfilling the Lib Dem administration's May 2003 election pledge for a cost-saving restructuring. On Monday, a confidential report carrying recommendations and financial implications and understood to involve reductions at a senior level, was discussed in private session at a special meeting of the council executive. The council declined to divulge the outcome in advance of the executive's recommendations being put before the full council as The Herald went to press. However, the agenda for the executive referred to the need to achieve efficiency savings, particularly at senior level. It also carried a statement that chief executive Christine Pointer had delegated her responsibility for the report to the head of personnel and central services. It went on to describe the current management structure of a chief executive with four service directors as "traditional", pointing out that many local authorities had restructured to a "leaner" top management structure. And it referred to reductions of £394,000 in staffing costs already made, adding that the top three/four tiers of management had, "to date", remained intact. The need to await the outcome of last year's tenants' ballot, which resulted in a vote against transfer of council homes to a housing association, has delayed the restructuring substantially. However, senior officers, executive members and opposition councillors have been visiting other boroughs to look at their management structures. Among them was Basingstoke and Deane, which took the decision in 2003 that it would scrap the post of chief executive and move to a strategic management board, only to abandon the shake-up in favour of retaining its £110,000 a year chief executive.