Powys performs well despite Covid-19

The report provides and overview of the achievements and challenges during the three month period and covers the pandemic response and recovery efforts as well as re-starting some of it’s normal activities.

It’s split into sections which includes a Corporate Improvement Plan Vision 2025 and Public Accountability Measures or PAMs, a set of performance indicators used by the Welsh Government to compare performance in key areas across the 22 local authorities in Wales.

The council's director of Transformation and Resources, Vanessa Young, told this week's Cabinet meeting: “There are 17 measures that relate to the PAMs in quarter two.

“Unfortunately for 43 per cent of those measures we were unable to obtain data because of Covid or because they are annual indicators and the data isn’t available.

“For those that were available we can see we have achieved 24 per cent of our PAM which is a similar performance to this time last year, and shows we are maintaining our performance despite the significant extra work we had in respect to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The only measure in the red is from Children’s Social Services for the percentage of assessments for children.

Councils are supposed to complete 90 per cent of these within a legal timescale of 42 days.

Powys completed 76 per cent on time,

Councillors were told that during the quarter there were 50 more referrals than at the same time last year. More staff were being recruited to help with assessments.

Council Leader, Cllr Rosemarie Harris said: “There’s some very good results in there given that we have Covid trotting along beside us and 10 years of austerity.”

Portfolio holder for Adult Social Services and the Welsh language, Cllr Myfanwy Alexander said: “It’s almost impossible for anyone who wasn’t here five years ago to understand how little we knew then, compared to how much we know now. We have this data at our fingertips in a way we can understand.”

The report and the changes to future monitoring and reporting was approved by cabinet.

The 2018/19 PAM’s ranked Powys fifth of the 22 Welsh local authorities.