Swindon Borough Council's Labour and Co-operative Group has voiced disappointment after all three of its nominees to chair the newly-formed Overview and Scrutiny Committees were rejected.
The group has accused the Conservative administration of conducting a 'stitch-up' with third-largest council party Reform UK.
However, the Conservatives have rejected this claim, accusing the opposition of being overly concerned about financial allowances.
The Conservative administration in Swindon has scrapped the three committees established by the previous Labour administration (Build a Better Swindon, Build a Fairer Swindon and Build a Greener Swindon) and replaced them with three new Overview and Scrutiny Committees – Communities and Place, Finance and Heritage and Culture and Leisure.
The Labour and Co-Operative Group says it nominated three experienced councillors to chair each of these new committees.
Cllr Chris Watts had been put forward for Chair of the Communities and Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee, having served as Cabinet member for Environment and Transport, while Cllr Kevin Small, formerly Leader of the Council was nominated as Chair of the Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee having been the Cabinet member for Finance, and Cllr Marina Strinkovsky was suggested as Chair of the Heritage, Culture and Leisure Committee, having previously been responsible for this area in her Cabinet role.
However, all were overlooked in favour of Reform members.
Leader of the Labour and Co-Operative Group and former Leader of the Council Cllr Jim Robbins said: “Having experienced members as Chairs of Committees means you are more likely to get more thorough and focused scrutiny of Council policy, which in turn leads to better policy-making and better outcomes for residents.
“Instead, running scared of any actual scrutiny, the Conservative Administration, after pledging in the election that they would not do a deal with the Reform UK group, have broken that promise before the ink is dry.
"First, they did a deal with Reform to elect Cllr Gary Sumner as Leader of the Council, followed now by another stitch up.
“Were the Conservatives and Reform in an official coalition together, there would be restrictions on who could hold the role of Chair on each of these committees.
"By relying on backdoor deals instead, the Conservative Administration are taking advantage of the new and inexperienced Reform members by placing them in Chair roles in exchange for an easier time.
“All three of our candidates have substantial experience leading these policy areas, having previously served as Cabinet Members responsible for the very portfolios they were nominated to scrutinise. Their expertise would have ensured that scrutiny was rigorous.
"We will continue to hold the administration to account, whether they like it or not. Residents deserve councillors who actually put in an effort for them and not those who want to take the easy way out.”
The Conservatives said in response: “We looked at the make-up of the chamber and allocated the chairs on the basis of proportionality.
"Labour chair the three main scrutiny committees, while Reform chair the three new committees we have created and reshaped around the priorities of this administration and the needs of the town.
“Frankly, the old committee structure was turgid - in the words of a former Labour Councillor - and unproductive. We have changed it because residents deserve scrutiny that actually gets somewhere, rather than endless meetings that generate little in the way of outcomes.
“Labour also seem to have convinced themselves that time served in the council chamber is the be-all and end-all of expertise. We don’t agree. Real-world experience matters, and we are pleased that the Finance Committee will be chaired by someone who brings decades of professional experience in finance to the role.
"That is exactly the sort of expertise residents should expect to see brought into scrutiny.
“Let’s be honest about what is really driving some of this outrage. Labour have been remarkably open about their concerns over allowances and who gets paid what.
"If their first instinct when they lose a committee chair position is to complain about the money attached to the position, that tells residents rather a lot about where their priorities lie.
“This administration is interested in getting on with the job, not handing out positions to reward people for having spent the longest time in the council chamber.
“Labour need to get over it. They lost the election, they are the opposition, and they have been given three significant scrutiny chairs. They should get on with scrutinising the Council rather than producing increasingly inward-looking and self-indulgent complaints about who gets a title and an allowance.”
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