Councils pressed to reveal regional plans by Mark Drakeford

Council leaders have been urged by ministers to explain within weeks how they will run services regionally.

The call, from Local Government Secretary Mark Drakeford, comes after he scrapped plans to cut the number of councils from 22 to eight or nine.

Mr Drakeford was addressing the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) conference in Cardiff on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a report by a union said 23,700 fewer people work directly for Welsh councils than did in 2010.

Mr Drakeford's approach to improving the efficiency of local government is the introduction of new regional partnerships in areas such as social care, economic development and transport.

In his speech to the WLGA he called for "momentum" in changing the way councils work, even though full-blown reorganisation plans have been dropped.

Further talks between the Welsh Government and council leaders will be held, with the intention of putting together more detailed proposals by the end of the year on joint working arrangements.

WLGA leader Bob Wellington also backed plans for services such as social care to be shared by councils within current health board boundaries, and economic development to be run inside different boundaries based around cities in the south, and in one north Wales region.

He also said council mergers could still take place on a voluntary basis.

Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen, Bridgend and Vale of Glamorgan, and Conwy and Denbighshire councils had proposed pairing up in 2015, but their plans were rejected by former Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews.

There was a marked contrast in tone to the speech Mr Wellington gave at last year's conference, when there was a strained relationship between council leaders and the Welsh Government over reorganisation plans.

Referring to Mr Andrews, Mr Wellington warned at the time there was "nothing more dangerous in a combat zone than a general with a map".

On Thursday, he praised Mr Drakeford as someone at cabinet level who "listens and engages in sensible dialogue".

Mr Wellington also described Brexit as a "disaster" for Wales but a wake-up call for politicians.

The conference came as the public sector union Unison warned that austerity was resulting in thousands of job losses at local councils.

In a report, the union said the cut equated to one worker out of seven, or 14% of people directly working for councils.

Based on data from the Office for National Statistics, the figures include full and part-timers as well as temporary and casual staff.

However, the union accepted that some departing staff would now be working for bodies which had taken over some local authority services, such as leisure.