Local councillors will have more say over how Swindon is run under Labour’s plans to change things at Euclid street says the group's leader.

Coun Jim Grant says he wants to stop the majority of elected members being treated as ‘voting fodder’ - but senior Conservative councillors, who hold power in Swindon, say Labour’s plans are irrelevant.

If Labour wins power at the local elections in May next year, Coun Grant wants to change from a cabinet system to a committee system.

At the moment, he said: “All the power is in the hands of 10 councillors, who make all the decisions. The 47 other councillors are largely impotent.

“They’re just voting fodder, told how to vote at full council meetings and with very little power or responsibility.”

In a committee system the cabinet member for each major department of the council would be replaced by a group of councillors, with the chairman of each essentially acting as a cabinet member does now. Crucially, policy committees would be made up of councillors from all parties, and are normally set up to reflect the political make-up of the chamber.

Coun Grant said: “Most of the work of the council is not political at all, and anyway it would mean that better arguments would have to be made to get policies agreed and through the committees and council. The ruling party won’t just be able to whip it through.

“There will be a policy and resources committee which will be the most important , and that will be chaired by the leader of the council.

"It just means that more councillors will be involved, and they'll have a greater say in getting things done and they'll have to take more responsibility."

Members of the Conservative cabinet don't think much of the plan.

Deputy leader and member for finance Coun Russell Holland said: "Swindon residents will remember that it was the Labour party who ran services so badly that a Labour government had to step in and take them over and this was while they put up the Council tax over 42 per cent. As a Conservative Cabinet we very grateful for the residents of Swindon for giving us their support. The sad fact is that Jim Grant and Swindon Labour have consistently voted against making the difficult but right decisions for the long term of Swindon and have voted against the Conservative budgets which have delivered fair and affordable Council tax. As Conservatives we are focused on providing high quality services and continuing to promote Swindon's strong economy and great projects like the Swindon snow centre. It's not really surprising that Labour is more focused on having more and more committees instead of supporting the big decisions that matter for the future of Swindon."

A Local Government Association study into some of the councils that have switched from a cabinet system to a committee set-up have found that both officers and members have to be "very disciplined".

The London Borough of Sutton was one of the first to swap. The council's leader believes the new system is more democratic and more councillors are involved in decision making and more opposition councillors have input.

But, according to the report: "Officers also had to change, and get better at forward planning as timelines are now longer than when there was a cabinet that met frequently and officers could take items to it at little notice."

At Brighton and Hove City Council, according to the LGA report: "members and officers had to be very disciplined about planning as it takes time to get papers through."

Other councils told the LGA that councillors had to take on extra work so they could contribute effectively to the committees on which they sat and needed more training.