Opposition councillors won their battle to stop cabinet decisions being made behind closed doors at the full Kingston Council meeting on Tuesday.

The Conservative administration was heavily criticised because the single party cabinet sometimes holds meetings in private to decide issues, before effectively rubber stamping them at public meetings.

Everyone voted in favour of the motion that any meeting which takes place between the full cabinet and officers will have to be open to the public.

A Conservative amendment to open all meetings between councillors and officers to the public was rejected.

Leader of the administration Councillor Kevin Davis said: We have nothing to fear from greater openness, it seems the Lib Dems do. We were calling for complete transparency of all local decision making, but they would only support the smallest move in this direction.

The argument over openness in the council has been raging since the council was modernised, and stems from the fact that the cabinet is a single party body.

This, councillors argued, prevented the kind of open debate found at cross party meetings with no majority, where all items are discussed and decided on the spot.

Cabinet meetings can last for as little as half an hour, needlessly adding to the cloak and dagger image of the councils decision making branch.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Councillor Roger Hayes, said: In the end common sense prevailed and councillors from all parties backed our motion to restore openness and transparency to Kingstons decision making process.