THE largest-ever shake-up of local government is under way and Blackburn with Darwen Council is asking for the people's views on how they should be governed. Legislation brought in by Labour will mean a massive change in the way local councils reach decisions, in a bid to make the system closer to the national system of government. Local Government Reporter LIAM MURPHY looks at the three possible systems and gives his view of the pros and cons.

LAST year's Local Government Act gives councils a choice of three systems to replace the committee structure which has been used for the last 100 years.

In 1997-98 Blackburn with Darwen's 62 councillors had to sit on 33 committees and sub-committees, responsible for areas from education, leisure and social services to finance, housing and personnel.

But many of the decisions being "made" by these committees were already decided by whichever group held the majority at the council and often the committees effectively just "rubber-stamped" them. To try to make it clearer who is responsible for decision-making, the government has decided to overhaul the whole system of local government.

Councils such as Blackburn with Darwen can choose from the three systems but are also obliged to ask local people which they would prefer.

From January 20, a special edition of the council's newsletter The Shuttle will be sent to every household in the borough. It will include a questionnaire inviting local people to say which of the new systems they would prefer.

The options include:

A directly-elected mayor and a cabinet made up of councillors.

A leader, elected by councillors, and a cabinet chosen by him/her.

A directly-elected mayor who would delegate day-to-day decision-making to an unelected council manager.

The elected mayor would have a political role, rather than the civic function the current mayor has.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's preferred option is a leader with cabinet and for the last nine months a system similar to that has been piloted.

All three political parties in Blackburn with Darwen Council are agreed on the new structure and, in a joint statement, Councillors Malcolm Doherty of Labour, Colin Rigby of the Conservatives and Paul Browne of the Lib Dems said their preferred option was a leader with a cabinet. Steve Leach, professor of local government at De Montford University said: "The government wants all authorities to change from the committee system, which it thought was inefficient and slow-moving, to a small group of people who can make decisions more quickly and efficiently."

He said the government had limited the choices available to authorities so councils couldn't do things against the spirit of the Act.

Prof Leach said: "The government preference is for elected mayors. Tony Blair is very keen on the idea -- John Prescott less so -- particularly for larger cities and other urban authorities like Blackburn; those are the kind of places the government would be particularly keen to see mayors."

But council chiefs do not believe there is a strong appetite among voters in Blackburn and Darwen for an elected mayor and are pushing for the current system, with some modifications which are currently being worked out.

Coun Doherty leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: "I cannot see how you could persuade people who thought the other system was going to be secretive that the elected mayor option would not be. Where would the elected mayor make his decisions? He would make them in his head. All he has to do is justify them. If people thought it was more open they might like it, but where is the democracy in that?

"At the moment people have a chance every year to let us know they don't like what we are doing but with an elected mayor you would have to wait four years. It does not strike me as a good democratic option."

According to Prof Leach, few local authorities are keen on the elected mayor option. He said: "It's not what they are used to. It cuts across how local political parties work.

"If a Labour leader is elected by the party he will have strong obligations to the party. With an elected mayor that link would be more tenuous."

The Local Government Act 2000 also requires the council to have a system which oversees how and why decisions are made and gives councillors the opportunity to look into specific issues more carefully. Blackburn with Darwen Council's scrutiny committee -- the Policy and Review Committee -- was set up to to do just this and has already become involved in one of the authority's most contentious policies -- the Town Centre Action Plan.

The scrutiny committee, which has Labour councillor Dave Hollings as its chairman and Conservative Group leader Colin Rigby as its vice-chairman, set up a task group of councillors to look at the scheme.

Coun Hollings considers this group's report one of the new scrutiny committee's most notable achievements. He said: "The Rapid Response Task Group on the Town Centre Action Plan showed how new political structures could enable a controversial issue to be looked at by non-executive members and let the public have their say in a way that would not have been possible under the old system. Getting so many members of the public involved -- I would never have

dared predict this."

Professor Leach said a failure of adequate scrutiny could "discredit" the whole system, whichever system is chosen. He said: "The whole system stands or falls on whether this works or not."