PLANS for the biggest shake-up Redditch Council has seen in nearly 30 years have been submitted to Secretary of State Stephen Byers.

The proposals could see a ''cabinet'' of no more than six councillors making day to day decisions instead of the current committee system.

Full council would still retain overall control of the budget and policy making.

But a referendum is still going ahead in the autumn on whether residents want a directly elected mayor to go with the cabinet.

This option would mean the mayor has the final say on the size and membership of the cabinet and who makes what decisions.

If this is rejected a fall-back option of a ''leader'' and cabinet would be installed instead.

In the first stage of its consultation the council asked residents, business, staff and others to choose between four new options but received a poor response.

However the results did show people favouring, by a slim majority, a leader and cabinet.

The results were:

l An elected mayor and cabinet 965

l An elected mayor and council manager 516

l A Leader and Cabinet 971

l A new streamlined committee system 681.

A second stage of consultation asked questions about specific details for the new arrangements but this received an even worse response.

For more information, log-on to the council website at www.redditchbc.gov.uk