THE Government Minister masterminding the shake-up of town halls across Britain has no intention of forcing groups of "super-councillors" to make their decisions in public.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's decision to have an eight-strong "cabinet" making decisions in private has angered many Lancashire Evening Telegraph readers, who feel it is undemocratic.

But in a visit to Accrington yesterday, Local Government Minister Hilary Armstrong said she felt no need to force councils to hold their executive committee meetings in public.

She said she was confident moves to abolish the existing committee structure would increase the public's ability to influence and understand the decisions which affect their lives.

Ms Armstrong said scrutiny committees overseeing cabinet decisions, would examine decisions.

In a recent Evening Telegraph telephone poll, 331 people were against the cabinet meeting in private, with only seven in favour.

Five of the council's 42 Labour councillors said they were also against the move when surveyed by the Evening Telegraph. When told of readers' concerns about meetings behind closed doors, Ms Armstrong said: "Where do you think decisions are made now?"

She claimed that many decisions were currently made by one-party ruling groups in private meetings before committee meetings which sometimes lasted less than a minute.

Ms Armstrong said: "Some areas are saying their cabinet meetings will be in public and that is their decision. But we are not insisting on that."

She said guidance documents about the Local Government Bill, set to be made law next spring, had been "put out to the public" for consultation and asked whether the Evening Telegraph had seen them.

When asked who had been shown the consultation documents, she said they had been published on a Government website and would be sent out only on request.

Ms Armstrong said: "If what you want is a token process, we could deliver that, but it would not be any more open or accountable than the current system."

The leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council Coun Malcolm Doherty has pledged that the despite the private meetings, there will be public scrutiny. He said residents and the Press would get access to the information they require.