MAJOR changes to St Helens Council's political structure were approved at a special council meeting on Monday.

Out will go the present committee structure and the number of meetings will be slashed so that councillors can spend more time in their wards representing their electors.

In will come a Cabinet with eight members made up of the leader and deputy and six members with individual responsibility for areas of the council's operations such as education and housing.

St Helens is following the trend set by other local authorities on Merseyside in adopting the cabinet-style system in response to the Government's call for local authorities to modernise the way they operate. But it has rejected the idea of moving to an elected mayor with executive powers. St Helens will continue with the present role of mayor to chair meetings of the full council and undertake ceremonial and community duties.

To ensure that the council tax payer has a greater say in decisions affecting the districts where they live, the council plans to set up area forums with the possibility that they might have some devolved decision-making powers on local issues.

"We need to make the council's political structure more responsive to the needs of the people we represent," said council leader, Marie Rimmer. "This is about giving councillors more time to get out of the town hall and into the communities they represent."

The proposals will be implemented next May if they are supported by local opinion. The council plans to hold public meetings to discuss its plans.

The authority also plans to review the way it reimburses councillors for the time and effort they put into representing their areas. At the moment, councillors receive varying payments based on the number of official meetings they attend but this is likely to be replaced by a system that gives greater recognition to the time spent in the community representing the council and responding to people's problems. Consultants will be called in to recommend a system for making appropriate payments to councillors in the future.

The council's plans have to be provisional at this stage because the government has not yet completed the detailed legislation it has promised. The cabinet will be responsible for implementing policies in line with the policy framework approved by the full council. It will make recommendations on policy to the council and propose how the annual budget should be spent.

Members of the controlling Labour group will hold all the posts in the cabinet and the eight members will all have individual areas of responsibility. The leader will be in charge of the council's value-for-money policies, setting priorities and targets for improved performance and the deputy leader's responsibilities will range from personnel, information technology and community safety to links with outside bodies and events.

The six cabinet councillors will have responsibility for separate portfolios under the headings of life-long learning (education, careers, youth and library services); housing; social services; economic development; environmental protection and social and cultural development (sport, leisure, parks, arts and community centres). Separate committees will be retained to deal with planning and licensing matters.

Proposals by the cabinet will be subject to review by a ratification committee on which the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives will also be represented. There will be at least one committee - again with all parties represented - responsible for scrutiny and overview of cabinet decisions. Members will be able to review decisions taken by the cabinet and also access the council's effectiveness at delivering what it has promised.

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