Discussion over scrutiny committee role at Powys County Council

At the health and care scrutiny committee on Wednesday, councillors discussed getting back to a more “normal” type of meeting, with a broader agenda.

At the moment, scrutiny meetings are supposed to be kept to an hour, with agendas kept to work being done during the pandemic.

The number of council staff attending meetings is also being kept to a minimum.

Committee Chairman, Councillor Gwilym Williams, asked councillors and staff if they were happy with the current structure?

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Councillor Williams said: “Would it be easier to space it out and have more time between meetings?”

Meanwhile, Councillor Jackie Charlton said: “It feels like we’re moving to another stage now.”

Councillor Charlton pointed out that the gold and silver team structure of running PCC during the crisis had changed from daily meetings, to one every three days.

“I’d be happy with a meeting every three or four weeks.”

Councillor Roger Williams added that he’d be pleased to get back to looking at issues in depth.

Recovery

He said: “We would need a work programme set out to make sure we are looking at the most vital and important aspects of the services.

“We have to be thinking of recovery and not just looking at business critical aspects."

Head of legal and democratic services Clive Pinney said: “I totally accept what’s being said.

“But at this moment in time we are only having scrutiny about business critical activities and other priority issues.

“Hopefully we will come back to normality, but we’re not there yet.”

Dinittyrector of social services Ali Bulman, added that the council's services were still working in “business continuity” mode.

At the full council meeting on March 5, a motion was voted through to allow meetings to be attended remotely.

And several meetings were held before lockdown on March 22.

But there were legal issues with holding some committee meetings.

To remedy this, on April 22 ,the Local Authorities (Coronavirus) (Meetings) (Wales) Regulations 2020 came into force.

This makes changes to the Local Government Act Wales allowing meetings to take place by remote attendance.

In May, the council's cabinet and scrutiny committee meetings restarted.

To date, only the planning committee and full council have not been held.