The first day in a new job is always daunting.

But how much more so if you’re one of just 57 people who make big decisions over a budget of hundreds of millions of pounds affecting the lives of thousands of people.

That was the prospect facing eight new councillors elected in May.

At least for the six new Conservative members, a new mentoring scheme was in place to help them along. Each new member was paired with a more experienced councillor.

The councillor for Old Town Nick Burns-Howell taken under the wing of Coun Dale Heenan – with 15 years’ experience and who is the cabinet member for the town centre.

Coun Burns Howell said: “When I was elected I’d been a councillor on the newly formed South Swindon Parish Council for just two years, so when I was told about this mentoring scheme in the group, I jumped at it.

“I work at Nationwide – and I was lucky enough to have a mentor when I started on the graduate scheme there, and I know how much that helped me then.

"I’ve been lucky enough to mentor people there, graduates and apprentices, and I have learned just as much from being a mentor myself.

“As I started I was a bit concerned about both form and process and also things of substance.

"It’s useful to have someone who can tell you how things work and what you do – whether you stand at this point in the meeting, when you sit whether I should wear a tie in the council chamber.

“But it’s also important to have someone to help with actually being able to deliver on some of the things we campaigned on, making a positive change, building on what the council is already doing. Dale is very well connected and knows the right officers to speak to, or the right councillors to speak to and that’s been really useful.

“Just being able to pick up the phone or text and say: 'Where do I start?' on an issue has been invaluable."

Coun Heenan said he’d wished there’d been something similar when he was first elected 15 years ago.

“I spent the first two years learning the ropes, going to every meeting I could, standing in for every councillor who couldn’t make a meeting.

“It’s useful to find where your interests lie: planning maybe or adult social care and most of us concentrate on those things because we can’t do everything and being a councillor, or a group, is very much a team effort.

“Nick is one of our shining stars among new councillors and it’s be great to be able to help him, and to see things though his perspective.

“I found in those first years If have nine or 10 ideas and maybe two or three would land, and if I was lucky one would actually happen, so I’m helping Nick focus on his top three priorities.

He told the Adver: “It’s important that he wants to be re-elected in four years’ time, so I want to be able to help him get something done, to make his top three priorities happen in the first months, so he has a good first experience of being a councillor.”

The other mentoring partnerships are Coun Jenny Jefferies, newly elected for Chiseldon and Lawn, mentored by Coun Emma Faramarzi, Coun Robert Janner, elected for St Margaret and South Marston and helped by Coun Brian Ford.

Vinay Manro representing Priory Vale, is advised by Coun Barbara Parry, Oladapo Ibitoye who won Penhill and Upper Stratton is partnered with Gary Sumner and Steve Hayes elected for St Andrews is helped by Steve Weizinger.