End of the cabinet? Dramatic shake-up of Worcester City Council on the cards

The city's Conservative group, which was ousted from power back in May despite being the largest party, has hatched an audacious deal with the Greens to overhaul the authority.

Under the move the cabinet model would be ripped up and replaced by the old-fashioned 'committee system' in a return to the nostalgic politics of old.

Very few councils around Britain use the system, but those that do say it takes power away from a select few into the hands of more councillors, who are given committee seats based on proportionality.

A crunch vote is taking place this Tuesday in a move which the Worcester News first revealed was a possibility back in September.

If accepted, the changes would come into force next May and be non-reversible for a minimum of five years without calling a public referendum.

Crucially, it would see Cllr Adrian Gregson stay on as Labour leader of the city council but his powerful cabinet replaced with decision making by committee.

It follows the local election results back in May which saw no party in overall control and talks over an unlikely red, blue and green 'rainbow coalition' collapse.

A motion calling for the change has been put together by Cllr Marc Bayliss, Conservative group leader, who only needs the backing of the city's Greens to get it approved.

At the moment Labour has 16 city councillors compared to two Green and 17 Tory.

Cllr Bayliss said: "It's my motion, we've created it and I'm delighted to say we have Green support.

"I'm still calling for Labour to come on board because thus far they've been very sniffy about it, and say nothing's wrong with the current system.

"They rejected a bipartisan cabinet, but the council needs greater stability."

Since May the Greens have helped prop up a minority Labour administration but Cllr Louis Stephen, Green group leader, is backing a new governance model.

"I want to see a change in culture - instead of time wasting we need to be focusing on things that matter such as tackling congestion, looking after the homeless and building a prosperous, high-skill local economy," he said.

"It’s a question of fairness, the Conservatives have 17 Councillors and Labour have 16.

"Bringing both the Conservatives and Green Party to the table will allow all parties to constructively take part in running the council."

But Cllr Gregson has urged the other parties to examine the flaws with the current system first, and spell out how the change would eliminate them.

"I'm one of those who had experience of the old model and the results were mixed," he said.

"What we need to do is analyse what problems there are with the current system, how serious do we think they are, what options are there to address it and will a change actually resolve all those issues without creating new ones."