WINCHESTER civic chiefs have unveiled their biggest overhaul of local government in nearly 30 years.

A radical new structure for the city council has been proposed to make it more modern, accountable and adapted to the needs of the 21st century.

Out will go the allegedly cumbersome committee structure to be replaced by a streamlined system with a powerful government-style cabinet headed by a leader.

The ten members of the cabinet would be allocated portfolios, such as planning or traffic. It will be divided on party lines in proportion to each party's number of seats.

New committees will be set up to create a system of checks and balances: a powerful scrutiny committee would be set up to monitor and investigate the proposals by the cabinet; Best value and performance monitoring and standards committees would also check on council work.

Many committees will be scrapped including traffic, policy and finance, environmental health and external relations. Planning and licensing committees would remain.

The new system would in theory undermine party politics. The government has said that party whipping is incompatible with the philosophy of scrutiny and overview.

Fears that the council might be tempted to follow the controversial decisions of some authorities to hold cabinet meetings in private have been allayed. The council is keen that all meetings be held in public except for the existing "exempt business".

The council is also keen to engage with the public so area forums will be set up throughout the district.

Members of the policy and finance committee have agreed that the council's current policy of allowing public participation at committees should continue and should also apply to meetings of the cabinet.

Some Liberal Democrats suggested there should be a system of written representations from the public to meetings of the cabinet.

But Labour group leader Patrick Davies argued that there was no reason why members of the public should not attend the meetings in person to put their case.

"It has to be done in a disciplined and organised fashion, but we have had no problems up to now. I see no reason why the system should be abused,'' he added.

The new structure is to be implemented from the start of the new municipal year in May, in advance of the legislation, to give the council an opportunity to gain experience of working under the new arrangements before being required to settle on a detailed scheme.

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