PROPOSALS to alter the way Worcester City Council works are to be debated openly for the first time this week.

A working party will meet at the Guildhall on Wednesday evening to consider whether a single-party "cabinet" of senior councillors should draft policy in future.

A new Local Government Act was passed in July requiring councils to modernise, but the legislation did not say cabinets had to include members of all parties.

One suggestion is for the cabinet to comprise the leader of the council and five other members - all from the same party.

They would not have executive powers but could "make recommendations" that would be rubber-stamped at full council or by an "implementation and urgency committee" - that might include members of the cabinet.

At the moment, the chairmen of committees are all Conservatives as the party has 16 seats compared with Labour's 15. There are four Independents on the council, who hold the balance of power.

The spokesman for the Independent group, Councillor Mike Layland, said he had no wish to be a cabinet member.

"But I would like to be on a scrutiny panel," he said.

But Labour's Coun David Barlow has criticised the single-party idea and comments made by the leader of the council, Coun Robert Rowden, in an article in the Evening News.

"It quoted the leader as saying a single-party cabinet was inevitable because collective responsibility was not possible in a multi-party set-up," said Coun Barlow.

"That's offensive. Multi-party cabinets are working elsewhere."

He claimed colleagues in other authorities had been "very impressed" with the plans laid out by the Labour group prior to the party's downfall in the May elections.

Coun Rowden said the council had been led by a single party during the Labour administration.

"I didn't notice any Tory chairmen of committees," he said.

The council is considering the creation of several "policy and review" committees, designed to study the cabinet's decisions and to summon its members for questioning.

Further meetings are scheduled before a final decision is made to introduce a pilot system.

Worcester City Council's director of corporate services, Philip Betts, has said the earliest time an experiment could be run would be next January.

Wednesday's meeting is due to start at 7pm.