SENIOR councillors have voted to join forces to help two Suffolk councils make their services more efficient.Waveney and Suffolk Coastal District Councils already share a chief executive and a head of planning, and now Waveney's cabinet has given its backing for the two authorities to create a joint cabinet task group, which will make recommendations to the separate cabinets of the two councils.

SENIOR councillors have voted to join forces to help two Suffolk councils make their services more efficient.

Waveney and Suffolk Coastal District Councils already share a chief executive and a head of planning, and now Waveney's cabinet has given its backing for the two authorities to create a joint cabinet task group, which will make recommendations to the separate cabinets of the two councils.

Waveney's cabinet agreed to go ahead with the creation of the group at a meeting on Thursday.

As well as making the council's more efficient, it will also allow councillors to share expertise and learn from the two districts.

Mark Bee, Waveney District Council leader, said that the new board would be made up of councillors from both authorities and backed up with a special team of officers.

Ray Herring, leader of Suffolk Coastal, said: “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.”

Each council will be able to select its own members for the new 12-person group, and up to �80,000 will be allocated from budgets to appoint specialist support for the project.