The authority of which I have some knowledge is one of those that has been allowed to retain its committee structure because it has a population of less than 80,000.  Despite that a lot of the day to day power seems to still lie only in the hands of those councillors who claim to be part of the group executive.

One party (Con) is nominally trying to run an unofficial minority administration but are 2 councillors short of an overall majority.  Lib Dems only have 2 councillors less and Independents hold the balance with 5 councillors.

This local authority has been no overall control for all but 2 of the last 31 years since it was set up.  As a result its culture is heavily officer dominated and although there are some pink confidential papers specially for councillors, that the public cannot access, the council officers have access to far more information that the councillors cannot on the whole access.  Requests for councillors to have internet computer access to many of the documents not generally available to the general public have so far been politely evaded by the council IT staff.

Councillors on this authority do not get a councillor computer or a dedicated phone line for council business.  They do get an IT allowance of 300 quid a year towards providing a computer and part of the home broadband line.

If a councillor should ever go into the council offices in the daytime rather than in the evenings (when the meetings are held) they will on the whole be left feeling heavily like a fish out of water.

The mere backbench councillors do however seem to have some real powers to overturn any bad officer recommendations on more controversial planning applications.