LABOUR councillors were last night accused of carving up key positions on a Merseyside authority for themselves and cashing in thousands of pounds in the process.

After the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties lost a swathe of seats in the May local elections, Labour took control of Merseyside Fire Authority, which runs the fire service. They have 11 seats, the Lib-Dems have four and the Tories just three.

But, at the authority's first meeting since the election, the Labour group announced it was going to slash the number of committees to two and scrutiny committees to four.

It then installed its own members as the chairs of the committees.

Before the election, no single party had overall control and the parties chaired a number of committees proportional to their total number of seats.

Opposition councillors have hit out at the lack of transparency and accountability in the new regime.

And as the chairs get paid a lucrative “special responsibility allowance” (SRA), the move was also greeted with claims the Labour group were handing out “jobs for the boys”.

Cllr Tony Newman, the Labour chairman of the authority, defended the move, saying it was all part of the political process. His group nominated Cllrs Dave Hanratty and Jimmy Mahon as vice chairs of the authority. They will also chair the two committees and receive £11,955 each in SRA.

The four Labour chairs of the scrutiny committees will receive £3,985 each on top of their basic allowance – which all members receive – of £7,970. Cllr Newman, as overall chair, receives £15,940.

But cutting the number of committees has also saved the authority around £40,000 of tax payers' money.