Workers at Labour's headquarters believe plans by the Labour leader's office could leave elected officials sidelined
Plans from the Labour leader's office to impose a new executive board to run the party were greeted with anger and derision at a stormy two-hour meeting on Monday, the Guardian has learnt.
The Labour general secretary, Iain McNicol, was repeatedly challenged to explain the plans at a meeting attended by as many as 150 staff members at the party's Victoria Street headquarters.
Staff are angry that some of the posts were not advertised and the executive board appears to be supplanting part of the role of the elected Labour national executive.
There are fears that the new board will mean redundancies and an effective takeover of the party by the leader's office.
The party leadership insists the appointments are part of a sensible long-term plan to integrate the needlessly divided party headquarters in Victoria Street and the Labour leader's office in parliament. "It is not a takeover, it is integration," said one.
The disagreements may also reflect political differences. Some supporters of both Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have seen the party headquarters as too loyal to David Miliband.
McNicol repeatedly apologised for the way the announcements had been leaked last Friday.
One member of the national executive told the Guardian that very few of its members understood the purpose of the executive board save to sideline the elected national executive officers, including the general secretary.
One said: "All we knew was that these jobs were being advertised, but we were not involved in the selection process."
The plans are the brainchild of the businessman Sir Charles Allen and Lucy Powell, the former acting chief of staff, but have been inherited by the new chief of staff, Tim Livesey.
Allen is the former chief executive of Granada Media and ITN, as well as a senior adviser to Goldman Sachs Private Equity and the chairman of EMI, the music group. He is widely expected to be given a peerage by Ed Miliband.
Livesey, Powell and Allen attended Monday's meeting to explain their thinking. Both Livesey and Powell are to sit on the executive board, along with the party general secretary.
Three other members of Miliband's team have been appointed to sit on the board including Bob Roberts, Ed Miliband's head of news, and the former political editor of the Mirror, Torsten Henricson-Bell, who will be director of policy and is also charged in his job description with integrating party and leader's office functions.
Greg Beale, also from the leader's office and a former Downing Street adviser, has been appointed director of strategy.
Other appointments cover membership services, field operations and fundraising.
One leftwing blog, Left Futures, did not refer to the Monday all-staff meeting but said of the appointments: "A number of senior figures in the party, not necessarily associated with the left in any way but who have had concerns about the management and direction of the leader's office, are known to be extremely concerned."
It added: "We doubt very much that the board structure as it has been announced, undermining the role of the national executive as it does, will enable the party machine to do its job effectively."