Alex Salmond last night welcomed an agreement with Westminster to bring back to life the moribund grouping meant to broker arrangements between London and the devolved administrations.
The First Minister briefed cabinet that Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, who has been charged by the Prime Minister with bringing fresh life to the process, had agreed the Joint Ministerial Committee would begin meeting again in May.
The full JMC has not met since 2002,and, of its four sub-committees, only the European Committee has continued to function. It is now thought likely the three others - on poverty, health and the knowledge economy - could be wound up and replaced by a single domestic issues group which would meet in tandem with the European Committee.
"I discussed this issue with Paul Murphy today and welcomed his agreement that it's time to reinvigorate the JMC and I am sure the other devolved administrations will welcome that too," said Mr Salmond last night.
"We raised this issue in correspondence with the Prime Minister in August last year and stated the case for a JMC plenary session and I am pleased the Westminster Government has now recognised the need to establish a better structure for inter-governmental relations."
The letter sent by Mr Salmond to the Prime Minister last August was said to be a broad request to look at re-establishing the moribund JMC process in the light of the greater political diversity in the wake of last May, with the SNP in government in Edinburgh, Plaid Cymru in coalition with Labour in Cardiff, and four parties sharing power at Stormont.
"The First Minister argued then that the best way to manage political diversity was to have formal structures to discuss differences," said a Government aide last night, who pointed out that Labour's former option of simply "bumping into each other at party conferences" was no longer enough.
Issues such as foot-and-mouth compensation, repatriation for the Lockerbie bomber, the Barnett formula, or the row over Scotland's share of council tax benefit, are all issues that might have been dealt with at the JMC had it continued to sit.
The impact of the London Olympics on funds for good causes could feature at the next meeting, especially with Glasgow seeking similar funding for the Commonwealth Games.
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