BOSSES at Pendle Council have pledged to save £2million over the next 12 months -- nearly a sixth of their budget.

A new £75million deal with private company Liberata, which sees 150 council workers 'contracted out', will help the council smash the Government's three-year target for saving 7.5per cent of its cash within 12 months.

The move comes after the council managed to save £918,000 last year which will now be used on street cleaning, benches and CCTV in the borough.

Coun David Whipp, Pendle Council's executive member for resources, said: "This is an ambitious plan by Pendle Council and is consistent with its approach to looking at ways of continually improving the way it operates and the quality of services it provides to local people.

"We are pressing for efficiencies over and above government targets, in order to better serve the people of Pendle.

"These efficiency savings will be made without cutting services. They will be achieved by the council looking at how it can do more with what it has."

The Government has called on all local authorities to make 2.5per cent 'efficiency savings' year on year.

Liberata is now running a range of council services and has a contract to do so for the next 15 years.

The company is due to build a new 'one-stop-shop' contact centre on the former Grand Cinema site in Nelson which council bosses hope will improve efficiency.

The council will also make savings through new ways of buying supplies and services, improving its website and what customers can do online, changes to its waste collection and recycling services and management restructuring.

Council chief executive Stephen Barnes said: "The efficiency savings targets imposed by the Government are about creating better services and using resources we have got to greater effect.

"The council already has a good and long reputation for strong financial management as publicly endorsed by the Government's Audit Commission in its last review of the council in 2004.

"We are constantly looking at how we can do more for the people of Pendle with the resources we have, so the imposition of the new efficiency savings target is a formalisation of the process of reviewing and planning we currently do as an organisation every year."