I would like to start by wishing everyone a happy New Year. I hope that you all enjoyed the festive season, and if you feel inspired to get into shape for the New Year, I hope you will use the numerous Council gyms, parks, exercise areas and other leisure facilities that we have available.

Now that the festive season is over, we have returned to address a key problem at the Council – how to change our household recycling collections and how to get rid of garden waste.

In December, following a well-supported public consultation, the Cabinet recommended going for fortnightly collections for recycling, and introduce a charge of £40 a year for a green waste bin and green waste collections.

As with all Cabinet reports in Swindon, the all-party Scrutiny Committee reviewed the decision-making process and there were a number of questions that neither the Cabinet member nor his officer team could answer at the meeting. Scrutiny Committee asked Cabinet to re-examine the proposal, something that we are doing this evening.

Swindon is somewhat distinctive in having a Scrutiny meeting shortly after Cabinet to allow all councillors to scrutinise all Cabinet decisions I would like to commend the Scrutiny Committee members for their diligence. This is exactly the kind of ‘critical friend’ approach that means every resident can have confidence in the Cabinet’s executive decisions.

The role of Scrutiny and the Cabinet is important, because there are some who would like to change this system and have all decisions made by a specific committee, such as a finance committee. Those who favour committees claim that that they are more democratic because they will be all-party committees. However, the committee system has a number of real disadvantages.

First, if we take the green waste example, once the committee had voted, officers would have implemented the decision. There would be no opportunity for councillors not on that committee to review the process.

There would be no Scrutiny, and only a limited chance for Full Council to challenge the decision. That is why the present system is stronger.

Second, the committee system means that all power lies with the majority political party. As long as it remains united, it can use its party discipline, known as the whip, to force through decisions. The strength of our present system is that non-executive councillors from all political parties, including those in the same Group as the Cabinet, are free to question and challenge any Cabinet decision, which is what happened here.

In short, the Cabinet-Scrutiny system in Swindon works to give taxpayers efficient, transparent, and accountable decision-making.

We would change it at our peril.