The Borough's ruling Labour group have been accused of ‘marking their own homework’ by an Independent Councillor after they shied away from appointing an Opposition councillor to chair the Audit and Governance Committee.

After recently deselecting one of their own Councillors, Claire Cooper, the Labour council group had an ideal opportunity to appoint an opposition Chairman of the Audit & Governance Committee at a full meeting of the council on Wednesday.

They chose not to do so however.

When the opposition Conservative group nominated Cllr Eddie Pope for the role, Labour pushed through the appointment of Labour Cllr Neil Furey by a very narrow majority.

Independent Our West Lancashire members supported the Conservative nomination because the role of the Audit & Governance Committee is to check and where appropriate challenge decisions of the council and its ruling group.This morning, Cllr Gordon Johnson told QLocal: "Being relatively new to Local Government I have researched a little the two models of Local Councils that operate in this country, the Cabinet and the Committee system.

"In a Committee System Council every serving Councillor gets to have their say on matters. In a Cabinet system, like we currently have in West Lancashire, many decisions are made by a small group of councillors, in our case this being just seven Labour councillors."With a Labour Chairman of Audit & Governance committee continuing, the question must be asked, will the Cabinet face appropriate scrutiny from their often ‘Party Whipped’ chairman?

"They are marking their own homework.

"The role of the Audit & Governance Committee is to check and where appropriate challenge decisions of the council. I am aware in other councils the Chairmanship of Audit & Governance often sits with the opposition and works extremely well, neighbouring Chorley council being one such. What are the Labour group afraid of?

"Surely some transparency in Overview and Scrutiny can only complement their running of West Lancashire Council business?”