The coalition government is committed to helping local authorities integrate health and social care jobs, a top treasury official said at the Kings Fund Conference yesterday.

Helen Bailey, the Treasury director of public services said that the government would give councils and primary care trusts greater flexibility to work together to make efficiency savings.

"It's clear the new government is very localised," said Bailey. "It's wanting to do commissioning at a local level. It's telling local authorities there will be less inspection and regulation but it's not saying 'don't work together' - different things will work in different places."

The conference discussed how the new government would approach the Total Place initiative established by the previous Labour Government. Under the Total Place scheme the local authorities and health trusts of 13 pilot areas in England and Wales were asked to work in partnership to share resources and develop common solutions to problems. It was proposed that a 'whole area' basis would allow service providers to make efficiency savings by linking the work of social care jobs with clinical healthcare.

At the conference, David Parsons, the chair of the Local Government Association's improvement board, revealed that the Total Place pilots will continue under the new name of "place-based solutions" under the coalition government.

In the pre-election budget published by Labour this March, it was estimated that public bodies in the UK could save up to £35bn by adopting a more joined-up approach to assets and by selling off surplus property.