FOUR local authorities are working together to improve educational achievement for their young people.

Monmouthshire County Council along with their counterparts in Torfaen, Newport and Blaenau Gwent are aiming to create an Integrated Achievement Service to raise education standards in south east Wales.

The four authorities have spent the past year developing a business plan and have produced a high level model in which to work to.

The Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen cabinets will each decide this week if they wish to proceed with the scheme.

Meanwhile the commissioners, who have taken over the administration of the Blaenau Gwent authority, will make their own decision.

If all parties agree to the setting up the Integrated Achievement Service, the scheme will go live in September 2012.

The scheme plans to provide a breadth and resilience of targeted school improvement support that the individual authorities cannot achieve on their own.

As the new service evolves it will give the four authorities the chance to consider further collaboration in other areas.

Leader of Monmouthshire County Council and Welsh Local Government Association's spokesman on education, Councillor Peter Fox, said:  "All council leaders throughout Wales have agreed that raising standards for children is our number one priority.

"If improvement on the ground is to match our ambitions then we need to work together and benefit from each other's strengths. This new service model gives us this capability."

The proposed scheme responds to challenges set by the Welsh Government for collaborative working to improve education standards in Wales.

The four authorities have put aside their political differences and are committed to improving and raising education standards in south east Wales. The scheme aims to stabilise the education system, reduce variance between classrooms and schools and ensure basic standards are met with reforms driven from the centre.

Individual councils will still deliver the majority of education services, but funding from each of the four authorities will be put into the new entity as a commissioning arrangement and service level agreement will be put in place to ensure clarity around the services provided.

•At Wednesday's meeting of Monmouthshire County Council's cabinet it was decided to adopt the Integrated Achievement Plan. For full details see next week's Chronicle