Senior members of the council are set to meet to discuss how the authority went about producing its botched council tax reduction scheme.

The ruling Conservative group announced a U-turn on the policy in January after critics panned the proposal for qualifying a portion of child maintenance grants as income.

Councillor Chris Smith, who chairs the audit committee, said: “There have been some changes.

“The decision-making process demonstrated it had not gone through properly with executive members and officers.”

Ahead of the meeting of senior council members, Cllr Smith told members of the audit committee at a meeting on Wednesday, 6 February: “We are looking at the process of how it was formed and not the decision”.

Conservative councillors approved the original council tax reduction scheme at a full meeting of the council on Thursday, January 24.

But pressure from opponents to the scheme led to council leader Julian McGhee-Sumner dropping the element of it which included a portion of child maintenance grants as income.

Therefore the revised proposal means those receiving the grant will not see any of it counted as income.

Cllr McGhee-Sumner said after the reversal was announced: “Having listened to the arguments and the concerns raised, we now believe that the child maintenance proposal in our council tax reduction scheme isn’t right”.

The opposition leader, Cllr Lindsay Ferris (Liberal Democrats) had said the scheme “puts undue pressure on the most vulnerable in the borough”, while Labour councillor Andy Croy had said: “This scheme proposes that we literally take cash from children. But it’s not cash – it will be food, clothes, school trips, colder houses or mums going without an evening meal.”

The council will now decide on its amended policy at a meeting on Thursday, February 21.