Independent and Lib Dem win coveted council committee seats

Slough Borough Council has been faced with a number of councillor resignations and leadership changes over the past few months; first, former leader Dexter Smith announced he was stepping down in April, and was replaced by Cllr Wal Chahal in May.

A shake-up of the cabinet followed, including the appointment of Cllr Iftakhar Ahmed as the lead member for housing, homelessness, and communities.

The former lead member for housing, Cllr Robert Stedmond, also stepped down in April, triggering a June by-election for Cippenham Green, in which Chloe Hart was elected as Slough’s first Green Party councillor.

Following the by-election,  the council needed to review the allocation of seats for its committees.

Council committee seats must broadly reflect the number of councillors each political group has.

As such, changes in the committees were thrashed out at a full council meeting on Thursday (July 30).

Cllr Paul Kelly (Con, Haymill) and Cllr Subhash Mohindra (Con, Upton) stepped down from their seats on the corporate improvement scrutiny committee, leaving a vacant Conservative seat.

Cllr Hart and Cllr Chandra Muvvala (Ind, Langley Marish) are stepping in as replacements.

In addition, a Labour councillor, Cllr Maroof Mohammad (Baylis & Salt Hill), is joining that committee.

Under the normal political balance calculation, the Conservatives would have been entitled to that committee seat, but instead a Labour councillor is occupying it.

As such, Cllr Mohammad’s appointment had to be backed with a vote from the full council.

Meanwhile, Cllr Kelly also stepped down from his seat on the council’s planning committee, which Cllr I Ahmed will take. He will also take a role on the investigating and disciplinary committee, formerly held by Cllr Dhruv Tomar (Con, Slough Central).

Cllr Tomar is additionally stepping down from Slough’s audit and corporate governance committee, as is Cllr Muvvala. They will be replaced by Cllr Mohindra and Cllr Naveeda Qasseem (Langley Foxborough).

Since Cllr Qasseem, a Lib Dem, is also taking a seat that would otherwise be allocated to the Conservatives, her appointment also had to be backed by the whole council.

Furthermore, Cllr Tomar will step down from the employment committee and corporate parenting panel, and additionally as chair of the trustee committee. Cllr Neel Rana (Con, Langley Meads) will take on the latter role.

At the meeting, Cllr Tomar said he wanted to make it ‘absolutely clear’ that stepping down as chair of the trustee committee was his decision.

Over the last municipal year, Cllr Tomar has served on almost 15 committees, panels and outside bodies such as task and finish groups, he said.

Though ‘more than happy’ to do it, he said that for his ‘wellbeing and sanity’ he was going to focus more on residents in his ward.

“The time has come for me to spend less time sitting in committee rooms and more time where I believe councillors make the biggest difference – meeting residents, dealing with casework, visiting estates and helping people face to face,” he said.

He also criticised the committee selection process, saying: “Looking at the appointments made over the last few months, it is difficult not to conclude that effort and commitment are not always what is rewarded.”

Cllr Tomar said that while some members have had very few committee responsibilities in the last year, others who had a ‘significant’ workload were ‘overlooked’.