THINGS got heated at a crunch meeting last night, as a council officer’s ‘patronising’ comments left a Tory councillor red-faced.

The meeting concerned major changes coming to Wirral Council in May.

Currently, most decisions are made by the cabinet and the leader, who make-up just 10 of Wirral’s 66 councillors.

But at a full council meeting last month, that model was scrapped in favour of a ‘committee system’.

In this system, all 66 councillors have a greater role in making decisions.

Discussing the changes, Cllr Jeff Green, who represents West Kirby and Thurstaston, was angered by the version of the committee system Philip McCourt, the council’s head of governance, proposed.

As Cllr Green railed against Mr McCourt’s warning of a ‘nostalgic return to the old committee system’, Mr McCourt interrupted him and he snapped.

Cllr Green said: “Don’t interrupt me. I didn’t interrupt you,” to which Mr McCourt apologised before defending his position.

Mr McCourt was keen to point out that the system he was proposing was based on the views of the ‘working group’ of councillors, rather than his own.

The row continued after the standards and constitution committee meeting had ended.

The disagreement between Cllr Green and Mr McCourt was to do with one specific element of the huge changes coming to the council.

The situation is explained in full below:

The background

From May, Wirral Council will adopt a system where committees of councillors make decisions on each policy area, such as social care, the environment and planning.

These committees are made-up of councillors from across the political spectrum and have the ability to make policy decisions, unlike committees in the cabinet and leader system, which can only scrutinise council policies.

This is why the committee system is seen as more democratic and inclusive.

Those in favour of the system believe having debates thrashed out at committees of councillors from different parties is far more open and transparent than the current system, which they say allows decisions to be taken behind closed doors.

However, some fear the many committees that will be established and the powers councillors may have to escalate controversial policy matters to full council, could slow down the council’s operations and make it less efficient.

This is what the row between Cllr Green and Mr McCourt was about.

Cllr Green wants councillors to have a high degree of power to bring major, controversial decisions to full council, arguing the public should be able to see these issues thrashed out in the open.

But Mr McCourt said a ‘call-in’ procedure is what is currently being proposed.

This does allow major policies to be escalated to full council meetings, but it is a more combuson procedure than what Cllr Green would like and in his opinion it is barely different from the current system.

Chairing the meeting, Tory councillor Tony Cox said he sympathised with Cllr Green’s concerns, but remained positive about the work being done to decide how the new committee system will work.

He said full council meetings are “sparse” and “filled with nonsense” at the moment. Under the new system, Cllr Cox was confident that “actual decision making” will take place.

All parties voted to change from the cabinet and leader system to a new committee model, but Labour wanted to delay the changes until 2021, to allow time to go through the details of how the new system would work.

Leader of Wirral Council, Labour’s Pat Hackett, said councillors need to work together over the next few months to agree on the best system possible.

He expressed frustration that the General Election had made a tight timescale for these changes even tighter.

Cllr Hackett was also keen to emphasise the more open and transparent way he believes the council has operated since he became leader in May and was forced to reach out to others after Labour lost its majority on Wirral Council.

Related to this, Cllr Hackett said the new committee system could be just as closed and partisan as the current system is criticised for being.

If one party won a large majority at a council election, they could control all the committees and limit the power of opposition councillors, recreating the problems they have complained about for years.

The next Standards and Constitution committee meeting is on February 25, by which time Wirral Council will have just over two months left before the new committee system comes in.