In a Perfitt World: Will they keep things locked in the Cabinet?

THE county council is likely to have a cabinet style of government soon instead of the present committees which have been the framework for years.

There will be consultative and scrutiny committees for each service provided to monitor the cabinet's work.

Those committees should be open to the public and press as, after all, they're spending more than £343 million of our money this year.

But there still remains still leaves the question about how open this sort of local government will be.

At the moment, county council meetings are rarely if ever attended by the public and so there won't be an angry horde of council taxpayers turned away if the committees or cabinet decide to go into secret session.

But is that the point? Well, they're spending our money and open government should where possible be there.

Over the years I've been to thousands of council meetings. While there has usually been no member of the public there, at least myself and perhaps another reporter have been on hand to act as a sort of watchdog for those who are at work or at home watching Coronation Street.

There are already private meetings at County Hall. Senior councillors in the controlling Tory group regularly meet senior officers to thrash out the way policies are going and so there shouldn't be a great outcry if under the new system there are private meetings.

The current system however does have open committees to vote on policy. The council's Tory group meanwhile has to contend with rumblings from the national party about cabinet rule in councils. William Hague said last month he isn't an enthusiast of cabinet style structures and meetings should be open.

Hilary Armstrong, Local Government Minister, is likely to insist on open council cabinet meetings. There are amendments to the Local Government Bill after a campaign by Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem MPs with the Society of Editors, the Newspaper Society, the Campaign for Freedom of Information and the National Union of Journalists.

A survey of 300 councils showed that just over half (154) have working cabinets and of these 93 open them to the press and public.

But the Local Government Bill provides no right of media access, prompting fears that once it becomes law, reporters could be barred. The minister says the cabinets will have to circulate agendas in advance and publish conclusions if the media is barred.