COUNTY Hall leaders have expressed dismay at reports that ministers are contemplating a major shake-up of local government that could threaten the future of Kent County Council.

A leaked memo written by local government minister David Miliband has revealed he wants to open a debate on whether the two-tier structure of district and county councils - which has served Kent for more than a century - should be abolished.

The memo singles out Kent as an example of what Mr Miliband believes is a system that has led to public confusion and created fragmented and competing leadership.

He says: "In Kent, for example, there are 13 council leaders and 99 cabinet members, as well as 500-plus councillors serving just 1.4million people."

Any review would be bound to place a question mark over the long-term future of Kent County Council, which under Miliband’s vision could end up relinquishing power to single-status "do-it-all" authorities or disappear altogether.

Mr Miliband’s memo says district councils could be invited to submit plans to merge with others and press the case for "do-it-all" status.

But KCC leader Cllr Paul Carter (Con) urged the minister to act quickly to avoid a long period of de-stabilising uncertainty for tens of thousands of council employees across the county. He promised that Kent would fight its corner and warned the costs of re-organisation could be huge.

"David Miliband must make his mind up quickly because this has the potential to have an enormous destabilising effect on all councils in Kent," he said.

He insisted KCC had good working relations with its district and borough councils but conceded that "things could always improve".

He added: "The potential abolition of county councils is obviously something Mr Miliband is looking at and it is up to him and his colleagues to decide whether they want local councils to come up with different solutions to what we already have."

But KCC opposition Labour leader Cllr Mike Eddy said council taxpayers would benefit by smaller unitary authorities.

He said: "In terms of simplifying services for the public, it would be much better and it could save a lot of money. At the moment, there is total and utter confusion among people about who does what. We have a situation, for example, where district councils collect rubbish but county councils get rid of it. A unitary would do both jobs," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister refused to comment on the leaked memo but did say: "Obviously, there is a lot of work going on about the long-term future of local government and we are aware there is interest in this issue."

The last local government shake-up in Kent happened in 1997, when the merger of Gillingham and Rochester City Council created a new unitary authority for the Medway towns.

At the time, another proposed merged of Gravesend and Dartford was rejected.