TWO councils are drawing up proposals that could result in millions of pounds worth of council services being privatised or merged to save money.

Hartlepool and Darlington and borough councils will debate options, one of which could save them a total of £8m by combining some of their services.

Other proposals include expanding partnership arrangements, giving work to private companies and voluntary groups or the creation of charitable trusts.

Hartlepool mayor Stuart Drummond said: "Following the unprecedented cuts in central Government funding, the council is having to explore new, innovative ways of working to help protect key public services in the future.

"One of the options that we have been exploring over recent months is how we can work together with other organisations in delivering services together and this has included some initial feasibility work with Darlington council.

"We are now at the stage where Hartlepool council's cabinet will be asked to approve that further, more detailed work is carried out to fully explore whether there are benefits to be achieved by working together with Darlington council.

"Hartlepool council has an excellent track record of working together with other organisations and, in the current economic climate, joint working is becoming increasingly important."

Darlington council leader Bill Dixon said people would not see a change in services.

He said: "We have to choose whether we take a knife to our services, or do we try and develop a strategy to try and retain as many front-line services as possible? Our preferred method is to retain front-line services for Darlington. We want to find ways of doing things cheaper."

However, union officials in Darlington oppose the plans, and said they did not believe in public services being provided by the public sector.

Hartlepool council's cabinet will discuss the issue on November 7.