On the 31st of October 2018, the Labour Cabinet at Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council voted to introduce a £40 annual charge per bin for garden waste collections. This is to be collected though a single payment each year in exchange for a bin sticker. This broke election pledges not to introduce such a charge in the 2018 local election.

The minutes of the cabinet meeting were published the following Monday – 5th of November 2018. Councillors who disagreed with the cabinet decision had 5 working days to submit a “Call In” request which needed to be signed by 3 councillors. If this “call in” meets the conditions in the constitution then the council officers will arrange a scrutiny meeting so that the matter can be discussed in detail and recommendations can be made modify the decision. The matter then goes back to Cabinet or Full council.

call in rules

date on Cabinet minutes

The green bin charge clearly could have been called in by any 3 of the 16 Conservative councillors submitting a form in the next week. It seems the Tories just did not arrange submitting the form in time and submitted it too late. At this weeks Internal scrutiny meeting  I expressed my disappointment at the Tories not calling this in.  In response, the Leader of the conservative group made a naff joke about me being clairvoyant and knowing their plans,  to distract the committee from their massive mistake. The reality is that it is now too late.

internal OSC meeting extract

original cabinet meeting