A LEADER and a cabinet are to run Blackburn with Darwen Council because politicians believe the public have backed their vision of the way forward.

An average of six different surveys -- including one carried out by the Lancashire Evening Telegraph -- shows 48 per cent of those responding backed the same option as council leaders and snubbed the idea of an all-powerful Ken Livingstone style mayor.

Although 48 per cent is a majority, one of the surveys -- among the council's own staff -- showed they were almost equally divided between a leader and cabinet and a mayor and cabinet (37 and 35 per cent). But just 253 voting forms were returned from 60,000 copies of the council's Shuttle newspaper and 116 of 6,000 leaflets left in public buildings throughout the borough were filled in.

In total the number of respondents in all the surveys represents 1.7 per cent of the borough's population -- and less than one per cent of those backed the council's favoured option of a leader and cabinet.

Paul Browne, leader of Blackburn with Darwen's Lib Dems slammed the response as "pathetic" and said it showed people "aren't interested in the way the towns are run". Conservative group leader Coun Colin Rigby, said part of the blame for this could be placed at the council's door.

He said: "If we want to engage the people we need to be more open with them and consult with them before decisions are made. At the level where it matters we are not really consulting with people prior to making the decisions affecting them."

Coun Malcolm Doherty, the council's leader, said he believed the response gave a good indication of what people in the borough wanted. "We have done everything we can to get the views of the people of the town," he added.

But opposition parties in the borough said the response to the public consultation had highlighted a lack of interest on the part of voters.

Dr Colin Copus, from Birmingham University's Institute of Local Government Studies, said: "The response to Blackburn with Darwen seems to be about average from what I have observed. It would appear that like many other councils they have failed to engage the public in a proper debate.

"It seems that the public are not concerned about the way in which their council is run.

"I suspect this is because councillors don't give them all the information in case they choose the option they don't want."

Another Birmingham University academic, Dr Declan Hall, said there were other means of consulting such as democracy commissions but they tended to come up with the results that leading councillors did not want and in the case of Liverpool where one recommended an elected mayor, the councillors rejected it.

The council will now complete its transformation to the leader and cabinet system after June's local elections.

For the last year, it has had a transitional executive committee, made up of opposition and majority group members who have ratified all the decisions made by the executive board.

That board -- or cabinet -- will now have control from June 8 and is made up only of Labour councillors.

Their decisions will be monitored by scrutiny committees, which will have the authority to question decisions.

See special SURVEY reports