Weeks before the local government White Paper is published, two councils have given the green light to a merger of all their departments.

The MJ exclusively revealed last month (28 September) that Adur DC and Worthing BC were considering joining up their services. Now, the two councils have provisionally backed the scheme, and are developing a business case for a joint management structure to bring together services, but leave the authorities with two separate sets of members. Questions still remain about how the arrangement could work in practice, but if the final plans are approved by members, both councils could be under a single chief executive by next summer.