NEW council leader Warren Morgan has spoken of his frustration that his party will not have a casting vote on key council committees despite winning the election by more than 20,000 votes.

The new Labour administration could struggle to deliver on its manifesto pledges without the decisive vote on some of the council’s most powerful committees.

Coun Morgan has said the balance of power does not adequately reflect his party’s electoral victory and puts his party in a weaker position than the Green administration which took control in 2011.

But opposition parties said the make-up of the committees reflects the democratic will of voters with no one party enjoying a majority. The numbers on council committees are based on the proportion of votes achieved by each party, with 125 seats on 16 committees divided between Labour’s 42% share of council seats, Conservatives’ 37% and the Greens’ 20%.

Group leaders have previously met in a series of meetings to negotiate how that balance would be spread out across the various council committees.

Forming the administration gives Labour the chairman’s role - but the party is outnumbered on the policy and resources, environment and transport and housing and new homes committees.

Labour had pushed for the casting vote on the council’s two most powerful committees, policy and resources and environment, transport and sustainability committees, but this was rejected by the Greens and Conservatives.

Coun Morgan said: “Labour won 20,000 more votes than the Tories, and almost 34,000 more votes than the Greens and we have the same number of councillors that the Greens had when they beat Labour by just 1% in 2011.

“Any independent judge might say we are at least entitled to the same power the Greens had then.”

Green convenor Phélim MacCafferty said: “No single party has an outright majority and that should be reflected in the composition of committee places.

“We firmly believe that the proportion of the seats should reflect the democratic will of the city. Labour will, as a consequence, need to work with the other parties to get policies through.”

Conservative group leader Geoffrey Theobald said: “In a hung Council such as this, where the minority Labour administration only has three more seats than the Conservative group, it simply would not be democratic were they to be able to push anything they wished through the two main policy committees.

“I have always said that we will be responsible and constructive and take every issue on a case by case basis as we did with the Green administration.”