PLANS for Worcestershire County and Worcester City councils to share the same chief executive have been dropped after consultants advised it would not be in either authority’s interests.

Proposals had been drawn up for Worcestershire County Council chief executive Trish Haines to take control of both authorities in a new joint role when her long-serving counterpart at Worcester City Council David Wareing retires early next year.

Mrs Haines had created some controversy with her comments to an industry magazine earlier in the autumn that she would expect a pay rise on top of her £170,000-a-year salary if she was asked to take control of the second authority.

But an interim report from private consultants Mouchel has now concluded that “it would not be in the interests of either authority to share a chief executive”.

The city council is in the process of cutting £3 million from next year’s spending plan and is keen to make savings by sharing staff and services wherever possible.

Although the plan for a shared chief executive has been ditched, a range of other areas where staff and services could be shared between the councils will now be investigated.

The consultants have made it clear, however, that major cutbacks will still need to be made at the city council.

A statement released by the two authorities said: “The interim findings from Mouchel have said that while the ideas proposed would save both authorities money, it will not be enough to help the city council wipe out the £3 million it needs to balance the books in 2009/10. The two councils should still look at options to share ‘back office’ services and further ideas will be looked at over the coming months.”

Youth and community services, museums, finance, IT, human resources, property departments, legal staff and customer services are all areas where the two authorities could work together in the future.

The outline business cases for bringing these services together will be presented to councillors next month.

City council leader Simon Geraghty said: “I accept the key recommendations in this report and am keenly awaiting the outcome of the further work on the business cases.”

And county leader George Lord said: “The county council is committed to working with the city council and other district councils to remove any barriers to providing seamless, joined up services. This should allow us to identify real savings.”