BCP Council could move away from its cabinet system under plans drawn-up by its deposed leader in a bid to be re-elected.

Councillor Vikki Slade, who was ousted in a vote of no confidence earlier this month, has pledged to begin the process of moving the council to a committee system, giving backbench councillors a greater say in policy making.

She said this would be facilitated by reducing the size of the existing cabinet to eight by removing its more inexperienced members.

Cllr Slade will be put forward by the Unity Alliance as its candidate for the leader role at tonight’s extraordinary council meeting going up against Conservative Drew Mellor.

And in a bid to win support from the five independent councillors she has offered to progress work to move away from the current cabinet system.

She said the committee system would allow a larger number of councillors from across different parties to be involved in decision making rather than the existing approach where decisions are largely made by the wholly Unity Alliance cabinet.

“We made a commitment to review changing to a committee system in our early negotiations last year and I suggested this was something that would be welcome from non-aligned councillors,” she said.

“In order to do this we would reduce the cabinet to eight people, removing the inexperience and keeping the experience.

“These measures would address criticism that has been levelled at us, however unfairly, that we are not engaging with all councillors or are too inexperienced to run a council.”

She said reducing the number of cabinet members would save the council £40,000 and that that money could then be used to fund work needed to begin the move to a committee system.

This shift would need the approval of the full council before it would be implemented.

Under the proposals she will outline at tonight’s meeting, councillors Lewis Allison, David Brown and Felicity Rice would all lose their cabinet positions.

She said she hoped the move would overcome concerns raised by independent councillors about working with the Unity Alliance and also allay those aired by some members of the ruling coalition.