PLANS to radically shake up the delivery of council services in Teesside are to be given a public airing.

Leading representatives of Middlesbrough council are to share a public platform with their new strategic partners, Hyder Business Services, to explain a ten-year power-sharing deal worth £260m.

Hyder is taking over the running of council services. Together with the council, it is taking the opportunity of the first ever meeting of the Middlesbrough Assembly to explain their shared vision and the mechanics of the deal to the representatives of various agencies and members of the wider community.

Tim Bush, a regional organiser with the Transport and General Workers Union, will also address the meeting which is being held at the Riverside Stadium on Monday, April 23.

Hyder plans to created a minimum of 490 new jobs and put £19m into the creation of a regional business centre and a single contact point for all council services in central Middlesbrough.

It forecasts making savings of £22m, which will be spent on priority areas such as schools and health care, while investing in information technology and developing libraries and leisure centres as community service points. Following presentations on the new partnership at the meeting of the assembly, there will be a general discussion on the move and questions taken from the floor.