Issues raised by Swindon councillors on behalf of their residents will get increased attention in a new action plan put forward by the Conservative cabinet.

The ruling group at Euclid Street has put forward an action plan to respond to the criticisms, praise and recommendations in a peer review of the council made by a visiting team from the Local Government Association.

Introducing the plan and leading the discussion council leader David Renard said: “The peer review report said we should be restoring the Swindon Swagger.

“There are three main areas of recommendation: One is engagement with partners and residents; the second is workforce recruitment and retention and the third is collecting and using data and the insight it gives us to make the best decisions possible.”

One of the action points is to improve the responsiveness to complaints and issues raised with members. There will be additional support given to the members’ hotline where such matters are raised and there will be an action group led by a cabinet member to monitor how quickly and fully issues raised are dealt with.

The council will also look at creating a place partnership scheme with partners such as businesses, business organisations and the voluntary sector to take forward ideas and plans for improving the borough.

And the scrutiny committee system may be reformed, with the committees of backbenchers set up to quiz cabinet decisions becoming more involved in policy-making.

That idea received the support of former head of the scrutiny committee and now leader of the Labour opposition Jim Robbins.

He told the meeting: “I’d like to look at pre-scrutiny where the committees can be involved in the decision-making and not just after the decisions have been made.”

Having been told by the peer review team to improve its use of date, the council will develop a new data strategy and will publish online Swindon Stats – with all the statistics for the borough broken down by ward.

To help recruit and retain staff a Swindon Success Squad will be set up to celebrate good work and there will be a new staff and member programme to Improve engagement between political leadership and staff through a series of events, including participation at the annual staff expo.

The action plan was approved unanimously by the cabinet and will be put into effect immediately.