All Fools’ Day 1974 saw the creation of separate borough and district councils throughout Dorset.

Forty years on, some of these occasionally hilarious bodies are now considering working in partnership.

Such an arrangement would, we’re told, produce economies of scale and provide services more efficiently. WDDC and W&PBC’s shared services have, we’re told, already saved £3million.

So, shouldn’t council tax payers be laughing happily at the prospect of better value for their money?

Consider this: The top priority for any bureaucracy is to ensure its own survival.

Be sure that this mooted collaborative tinkering will primarily benefit the councils themselves, not us. Even trivial savings will help to distract from the real problem.

The sum of £3million, though welcome, is a mere chuckle compared with what might have been. Accountancy firm Deloitte estimated in 2007 that Dorset as a Unitary Authority could save £20million every year in back office savings alone. But then, while several other counties bid successfully for unitary status, Dorset didn’t even try. And now they talk about saving us money.

And set that £3million against the simultaneous service cuts, and, of course, the millions still being lavished on WDDC’s grandiose flagship project in central Dorchester.

The formation of the Dorset Waste Partnership and the sharing – albeit piecemeal – of services by WDDC and W&PBC are in effect a tacit admission that these separate bodies are unnecessary, unfit for purpose and poor value for money. Their continued existence is increasingly difficult to justify.

A total of 85 per cent of my council tax bill is split between the county (68 per cent), town (10 per cent) and district (seven per cent) councils, each with its own administration, premises, staff and councillors, and its own portfolio of services. But does any taxpayer truly care who does what, as long as it gets done?

Which of these three levels of government could we easily live without? Come on – district and borough councils. Reallocate your little portfolio between county and town and disappear quietly, saving us some serious money and giving us all something to really smile about.

And the sooner the better.

Chris Holmes, Address supplied