Should Haringey Council merge its services with other boroughs?

With the impending public spending reductions announced in the government's recent spending review, many councils are considering sharing back-end functions and even merging whole front-line departments to save money. (City of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, and Hammersmith & Fulham already plan to go through this route, while Camden and Islington are consdering it). This could be problematic for Haringey, with its poor reputation, other boroughs would not not want to be associated with an organisation in which even many people in local government say may be chaotic. However, there are pitfalls in this. The experience in Barnet shows that their "easyCouncil" approach to delivering services hasn't gone down very well. Also, the projected job losses that will happen as a result might actually push costs up because of councils sacking too many people too soon. Here is an opportunity for Haringey to consider working closer together with other councils to look at the way the borough is managed and learn from how they have improved their neighbourhoods. Merging services across boroughs, planned and implemented properly, could in the long term help improve the way local services are delivered in Haringey. What's your view?