A SNAP general election could cause disruption to the preparations for unitary council status in Dorset.

Councillors are being told that it could mean staff would have to be taken away from some of their work in preparing for the new Dorset Council which starts life in April to help run the election process.

A report to the shadow executive committee notes: “With the current volatile political atmosphere, the Elections team have developed a draft Parliamentary election plan in the event that an election is called.

The resource plan would need to be implemented, and augmented by additional resource to run two sets of elections.”

The same report also warns that the team working on change to the new council is already struggling to find adequate staff to work on the process with many officers unable to be released from their substantive roles – which has led to an increase in temporary staff being bought in.