Kingston Council is set to agree to pool resources and work alongside Sutton Council to deliver highways services, environmental health and trading standards.

The infrastructure, projects and contracts committee will discuss the proposals tonight, which are expected to save £580,000 a year, between the two councils, by 2017/18.

Sutton Council agreed to the move on June 18. Services to be merged include street cleaning, winter maintenance, road safety schemes, highways design and maintenance and sustainable travel as well as trading standards, licensing and environmental health.

The councils employ 186 staff on these services.

The documents provided to the council do not clearly set out how staff would be affected by the proposals, but  £200,000 in funding is set aside within the business case for redundancy pay in 2015/16, while a further £50,000 is also set aside for the next two financial years.

A total of £250,000 is also set aside to pay for “transition” staff between 2015 and 2017.

A Sutton Council spokesperson said: "Any potential redundancies as a result of the shared arrangement will be shared equally across the two boroughs. However, we do not know how many jobs may be affected at this stage."

The business case presented to members argued services should be more proactive rather than reactive, that some practices currently in place are outdated, as are IT systems, and commercial awareness is not part of the work culture.

Officers working for both council recommended sharing services, with Kingston acting as the host to meet budget challenges stemming from reduced government funding.

Councillor Jill Whitehead said: “The case for Sutton and Kingston Councils pooling resources and working together with their Highways, Traffic and Regulatory services makes sense strategically and will save the taxpayer money.

“Both councils are taking an innovative approach to these services and we will be among the first councils in England to take this step.

“Sutton and Kingston are focusing on a number of opportunities with partner organisations for strategic collaboration. This is more than sharing services and will involve exploring new and innovative service delivery models while recognising the needs of both our communities and service users.”

Sutton Council already shares services including legal, Information and Communications Technology, Human Resources, Community Safety and elements of its adoption service.

Councillor Richard Hudson, lead member for capital projects and infrastructure on Kingston Council, said: "This shared service agreement makes sense for local people of both our boroughs.

"The truth is that with our funding continuing to be reduced all of us in local government need to find smarter and more efficient ways to do things so we continue to deliver the important services that local people need.

"I'm delighted we have hammered out this agreement with Sutton – the residents of both our boroughs will be the winners."