A partnership of three Suffolk district councils has struck an important deal to help make collective savings of over £1 million.

Suffolk Coastal, Waveney and Babergh wanted to see if joint working could help them negotiate a better deal for their insurance costs and their efforts will realise huge savings on insurance premiums across the next five years.

Cllr Chris Punt, Waveney’s Portfolio Holder for Performance believes this is an excellent achievement. He said: “Effective partnerships between councils deliver efficiency and real value for money and I am delighted that we are all able to make such a considerable saving.

“We have a duty to the council tax payer to provide high quality services and to use the resources available to us as wisely and efficiently as possible. Thanks to the efforts of three neighbouring councils we have made a saving that can only benefit the people we serve.”

Following their recent success, with Ipswich, in reducing the cost of banking services, the three councils have done it again, according to Cllr Robert Whiting, Suffolk Coastal’s Cabinet Member for Resources.

We managed to save £76,000 between the four councils on banking costs, but that figure is clearly dwarfed by this excellent result in driving down our shared insurance bill by £1.3 million. This is yet another example of how working together is helping deliver more efficient services,” he said.

Cllr. Humphrey Todd, Babergh’s Procurement Champion added “we are constantly seeking out ways of reducing costs and delivering services more efficiently especially by working in partnership – this five-year contract is yet another example as to how successful we are in this”

After a lengthy tender process Zurich Municipal emerged as the preferred insurance company. The new five year contract with Zurich will begin shortly and will include an option to extend by a further two years.

The tendering process was led by Waveney and the other parties provided financial and legal support.