But Cllr Radford said: “It was an utter disgrace, a farce and a waste of money. It has not come up with one single meaningful or substantial proposal, and the only one it has come up with was unenforceable.

“Primaries can’t be funded by the state, so why should parties take on a function they have limited resources for and would contravene the rules of the Electoral Commission?

“The other issue they’ve not even looked at was how we could introduce proportional representation onto the city council.

“The whole thing was academic waffle and it has glazed over the real issues.”

The report heard evidence from councillors, officers and representatives of the media. BBC Radio Merseyside presenter Roger Phillips spoke of how “the local media and the city council do not serve each other well”.

He added: “Under the new structure a lot of councillors seem disenfranchised and there is a lot of in-fighting between the political parties at council meetings which doesn’t allow a mature view of the council to be put forward in the media.”

City council leader Cllr Warren Bradley told the Commission he felt that “people don’t really understand the role of a local councillor and would probably say they do ‘very little for me’.

“We need to communicate better about how we do things. Engaging with young people is particularly difficult and we need to find better ways of communicating and look at using social networking sites or by using emails or texts.”

Labour group leader Cllr Joe Anderson, who admitted council meetings “could get a little heated”, said there needed to be a “consensus for change, we need to look at how we engage and communicate with the people of Liverpool and get the message across.”

The report is launched today.