Last Monday, the council adopted its budget for 2015/16 with not one single vote being cast against it. The main headline figure is that there will be no increase in the council tax for the fifth year running.

However, because of precepts from parishes and the fire and police services, the actual bills you receive may change a little.

I must thank my cabinet member for finance, Coun Russell Holland, and his officers for the huge amount of work that went into preparing this budget.

Not only have we avoided widespread closure of services like libraries but we are also putting more money into street-cleaning and repairing potholes. We are continuing to spend more of the council tax we pay on caring for the vulnerable elderly, those with learning difficulties and safeguarding children.

There was a vast effort to put this budget together. Not only did we publish the draft budget last December, but also we were ready to consult on significant proposals last July. The final budget has involved taking the tough but necessary decisions about which children’s centres to run, transferring our leisure centres to a social enterprise, bringing Swindon Commercial Services back in house and allowing a private company to run our golf courses.

These decisions illustrate how this administration has consistently applied the principle of putting the needs of Swindon first, and not being bound by ideology or partisan preferences.

You can see how successful this approach was by the absence of key amendments from opposition councillors on Monday night. There was no attempt to reverse the decision on the children’s centres or the leisure services. There was no amendment to abolish the subscription green waste collection service.

In fact, for a net budget of over £135m, there were just £300k of amendments from the non-Administration councillors. Councillors accepted over 99 per cent of the Administration’s proposals without comment.

Of course, now we have the challenge of delivering the £17.5m of savings that the budget contained. This will not be easy as many of our services are demand-led; if a person needs support, care, or assistance, the council may have a legal duty to provide it regardless of how much it may cost.

Moreover, even though we largely completed this budget by December, there has been no rest for Russell or his officers. In 2016/17, the council will have to find a further £20m of savings, regardless of what might happen at the general election in May. Although part of this relates to changes in central government financing, the biggest element comes from the rising demand for council services from our growing young and elderly populations.