WIRRAL Council is seeking potential business partners to join them in creating their own joint venture company in a bid for financial self-sufficiency.

A report to next week's meeting of the ruling Labour cabinet aims to kick-start the process towards providing a full business case for the move.

The proposal is to be advertised and "soft market testing" will be carried out with selected companies which have expressed an interest.

If all goes well and the scheme appears credible cabinet will be asked to approve setting up the new joint company in May.

Joint ventures have been in use for many years by local government.

But their number is increasing as councils across the country look for alternative funding methods to protect front-line services in the face of austerity measures.

Wirral must slash £45m from its budget over the next 12 months and reduce spending by £130m by 2020.

The most common services provided through a joint venture include IT, finance, human resources, payroll, road repairs, schools catering and property management.

In his introduction to the report - called "Delivering Wirral's Growth" - council leader Cllr Phil Davies says: “Driving economic growth, helping to create good, high-paying jobs, is incredibly important.

"This importance is only heightened by the simple fact that by 2020 Wirral needs to be completely self-sufficient.

"The only money we will have to invest in this borough will be the money we can raise ourselves.

"Throughout Wirral we have huge opportunities to transform our economy and this report is an important next step in putting us in the best position to capitalise on them.

"We are continuing our work on developing a new approach to drive economic growth and will do further work in the coming months to turn these plans into a reality.”

Analysis by accounting giants Grant Thornton found joint ventures can be effective, but warned their success relies on "shared objectives and good governance."

A report by the firm in 2016 said: "Reasons to be cautious remain - a number of joint ventures between public and private bodies have had mixed success in achieving outcomes for councils."

Vivien Holland, Local Government Advisor at Grant Thornton, wrote: “Overall, joint ventures can be a viable alternative delivery model for local authorities.

“There are well-publicised cautionary tales of public-private JVs, however many councils are continuing to use this type of JV because they recognise that working with experienced commercial partners brings cost-effective solutions."

Liverpool City Council walked away from its joint venture deal with BT in 2014 amid disputes over value for money, wrangles about procurement practices and claims the city was being overcharged by up to £10m a year.