SHARING more services with neighbouring councils is probably going to be the route forward to save Wycombe taxpayers' cash, rather than a full merger, the district's leader says.

Moves towards a unitary authority seemed to have been gathering pace in recent months, with both Wycombe District Council and Aylesbury Vale District Council setting up task force's to investigate the idea.

Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve, a Government Cabinet Minister, told the Free Press this year the Coalition would welcome any proposals to save public money, while Bucks County Council Leader Cllr Martin Tett said he had long been behind the idea in principle.

But Cllr Richard Scott, WDC leader, said: "Unitary is not favoured by Government as I understand it.

"And bearing in mind some of the benefits that were perhaps alluded to four or five years ago, when this was first raised, have been dealt with, the county council alone has saved £60m.

"Are those savings still available on the scale they were five years ago?"

WDC has recently saved about £2m by signing a joint waste contract with Chiltern District Council.

Cllr Scott warned those in favour of a new super council or a merger: "There is a cost for this, you don't get it for nothing."

Frequently, the argument against it has been high initial start up costs, though campaigners say savings are huge in the longer term.

A report in 2006 indicated savings of £35m per year.

Cllr Scott said: "If you were minded to merge services in some way there's a cost of doing that and we have to get a pay back on that.

"That's for us to measure whether that is still worth doing or if we do some more shared services which is probably the prefered route in the short term."

He confirmed WDC is looking at other ways it could share services with neighbouring authorities.

He added: "We will look at anything that will effectively keep our costs down as long as it keeps the residents happy."

He said he believes in some cases parish councils can be given extra powers for issues that they may be able to deal with more effectively.

WDC's scrutiny committee will meet next week to discuss the details of how a task force will investigate the matter.

A report outlining the issues and options for a review will be put to the Improvement and Review Commission.

It asks councillors to decide whether the scrutiny review should be done by WDC alone, or as a joint review with the other Bucks councils, and if the review should consider one or more unitary authorities within Bucks and the costs.

Once established fully, the Task and Finish Group will consider the timescale for the review.