A working group to investigate the various proposals being put forward for local government reorganisation will be set up. 

Rutland is expected to appear in four different schemes being put forward by various local authorities when the final submissions are made to the government next month. 

Rutland County Council's officers have been involved in putting together a North Leicestershire bid, which would see it join forces with neighbours in Charnwood, Melton and North West Leicestershire to form a new larger unitary authority. 

There are two other expected bids from Leicester City Council and Leicester County Council and a fourth bid from councils in South Lincolnshire. 

Rutland's full council of 27 members will debate which bid to put forward on November 20 and ahead of that, it was decided at last night's council scrutiny committee, chaired by Lucy Stephenson (Con), that a task and finish group to investigate each of the proposals would be set up.  

The committee had been asked to do the work after a request from council leader Gale Waller (Lib Dem) to 'sense check' the principles for discussion for the November 20 meeting and also identify matters of importance to Rutland stakeholders that should be discussed. 

However, a spanner in the works could be that, as yet, Rutland does not have access to the details of the other proposals. 

At the meeting held at Catmos House, Coun Waller (Lib Dem) said 'none of us want to be here, we have been instructed by the government'. 

She said the authority was 'anticipating' bids from the other authorities but had no clear details. 

She said: "We have not seen anything from Lincolnshire since the interim proposals in March, similarly for Leicestershire and similarly for Leicester city. I have seen various iterations for the Leicestershire North and Rutland proposal. 

"I am anticipating that sometime next week, possibly the week after the most recent draft from the Leicestershire districts and Rutland will be made available for members to consider and when that happens my suggestion is that this scrutiny committee sets up a task and finish group to deal with it when it comes out, along with looking at the ones from Lincolnshire, Leicester City and Leicestershire as they become available. 

"So as scrutiny you can go through in detail and feed through to our monitoring officer to incorporate your views within the paper that goes to council on November 20."  

She added: "I know that is not what you want, and it is not what I wanted either, but there is a lot of information to sift through, and we are all up against a, quite frankly, ridiculous timescale." 

Cllr Ray Payne (Lib Dem) said the lack of detail was an issue. 

"I have written myself a note [during the meeting] 'local government reorganisation, it's all as clear as mud'. Because that's the problem, isn't it? We don't have the details, and I question whether we have any authority either, either the committee or the council. The devil is always in the details and that's what we need to get into." 

The committee briefly discussed the findings of a council commissioned survey carried out this summer, which involved public meetings at locations across the county and an online survey. 

The results included financial stability of any new council and the ceremonial status of Rutland as high priority. The scrutiny committee said it wants these issues to be on the agenda on November 20. 

The reorganisation has been causing tensions within the council, with the Tory group mounting an unsuccessful challenge in August to unseat Cllr Waller from her leadership role.  

Tory MP for Rutland and Stamford Alicia Kearns has also been critical of the council's handling of the matter and says more consideration should have been given to the South Lincolnshire bid.  

The council's own survey found the preference of most who took part was for the South Lincs proposal.