COULD a new Welsh Government commission lead to a cut in the number of the nation's councils?

Wales' First Minister Carwyn Jones has established a new commission looking at how public services are governed and delivered.

Its remit is yet to be announced, but there is speculation that the commission will examine whether local government needs to be reorganised.

Mr Jones said: "Since public sector budgets are likely to continue to tighten, and demand pressures grow, there is a clear need to examine how services can be sustained and standards of performance raised".

A Welsh Government spokeswoman confirmed that local government services will be included in the commission's remit but said "its work is a much wider exercise to improve all public services in Wales."

The move comes after a damning Wales Audit Office report into Blaenau Gwent, education services in Blaenau Gwent and Monmouthshire being put into special measures and an abandoned attempt to merge Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly councils' social services.

There are currently 22 authorities, set up in 1996 and replacing eight county councils that were sub-divided into a a number of district councils.

Peter Black AM, Welsh Lib Dem shadow minister for local goverment, said it would be right for the commission to be looking at how councils could be working better.

"Currently, we have too many small councils who are completely out of their depth and are failing to provide reasonable services for their people," he said.

The Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery was welcomed by Councillor Bob Bright, leader of Newport City Council.

He said Newport, because of its geographical position and because it has led on developing new ways of working "would be ideally placed to play a strategic role in any new design for local government."

Conservative Monmouthshire council leader Peter Fox said there needs to be a "dose of courage to face up to the world as it is and will be, rather than how it was".