Wandsworth Council has formally agreed to a shared staffing arrangement with Richmond Council, with officers praised for the speed at which the idea has come to fruition.

A special council meeting was called on Wednesday, April 27, to agree the terms of the shared staffing arrangement first proposed in March last year.

April 18: Richmond Council leader 'utterly unrepentant' about staffing merger as job losses loom

February 5: More than 3,500 Wandsworth and Richmond council staff told they will be "dismissed and re-engaged" in shared staffing plans

Councillor Andrew Peterkin said: “A huge amount has gone on behind the scenes on this. We would not have got to where we are without the hard work and goodwill of the officers involved. We need to push on with this to put the council on a firm financial basis for the years ahead.”

The Labour group on council tabled a motion calling for amendments including a “commitment to provide a level of services which is at least good”, service levels monitored by key performance indicators, and a continuation to look to other councils to share certain services.

The group also wanted an independent review of the arrangement once it had been in operation for a year, but the motion was defeated by the majority Conservative group.

Councillor Peter Carpenter said: “We are not opposed to making efficiency savings, we have no difficulty seeking economies of scale. We do not oppose this in principle but we have concerns. I have heard that many of these are shared by the majority party members.”

Jan 2015: Union raises concerns over job losses following Richmond-Wandsworth merger announcement

Councillor Maurice Heaster said: “We should not keep nitpicking on the detail, detail, detail. We want to progress this, you [Labour] want to slow things down. I do not want to slow things down, there are going to be even bigger reforms in the not too distant future.”

A figure of £10m has been given as the estimated annual saving for Wandsworth Council, with a report to the meeting claiming more than £1.2m has already been “banked” by sharing chief officers and in a transactional service tender.

The council has budgeted £2m to hire extra staff and implement changes in departments to deal with the children’s services crisis after a damning Ofsted report earlier this year.

In a statement to the Wandsworth Guardian on April 13, a Unison representative said: “Our members across both Richmond and Wandsworth Councils are understandably concerned about the impact of the proposed merger on their jobs and on local services. Local authority funding cuts made by central Government are forcing councils to consider drastic measures such as this to cut costs.

“Unison representatives have been negotiating hard, alongside colleagues from the other unions, with employer representatives for ‎several months now to try to minimise loss of jobs and protect Unison members pay, terms and conditions. We have been served with Section 188 Notices suggesting that an estimated 110 staff may be at risk of redundancy.”