CO-OPERATIVE Group delegates have overwhelmingly backed a major shake-up at the crisis-hit organisation with an 83 per cent vote for big changes at the top.

Around 200 representatives at a Manchester special general meeting on Saturday endorsed new rules that will see the governing body shrink from 20 to 11 and slash the number of elected board members.

Group chairwoman Ursula Lidbetter branded the vote “a momentous and defining moment.”

A compromise deal will see regional boards axed but a new 100-strong council of members established.

A “senate” drawn from it would act as a bridge between a majority appointed board, with an independent chair and five independent directors, two executive directors and three member-nominated directors elected on a one member, one vote basis.

Until now grass-roots members could theoretically be promoted through one of 48 area committees and seven regional boards and take one of 20 elected group board seats.

But City figure Lord Myners delivered a scathing verdict on the set-up last year after the discovery of a £1.5 billion financial black hole and lurid revelations regarding cocaine and methamphetamine-abusing elected non-executive chairman Paul Flowers.

Lord Myners said that elected appointments should make way for an entirely appointed board, but big regional co-op Midcounties led vocal opposition to the plan.

In recent months the Co-op Group has been forced to sell its farms and pharmacies and cede control of the Co-op Bank, but it has clung on to its retail business as well as insurance, legal and funeral services.