Skype council meetings over virus fears

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

If the Coronavirus epidemic gets worse, Council meetings might need to be conducted over Skype.

At Powys County Council’s (PCC) full council meeting on Thursday, Cllr Peter Roberts brought a “motion without notice” to the chamber.

This was just after the UK government announced that they have moved to the second phase of dealing with the illness.

Cllr Roberts wanted to suspend standing order 4.27 which discusses remote attendance at meetings.

He explained: “Basically whilst we have been meeting, Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer has reported to a commons committee that the cabinet have now moved to phase two of the Coronavirus containment plan.

“This increases quite significantly that gatherings in public, potentially including our meetings of full council and committees may be given guidance not to go ahead.

“Standing order 4.27 prohibits us from holding meetings with remote attendance, the effect of this is that scrutiny, cabinet, full council and any other meeting could potentially be suspended for the duration of the virus outbreak.

“Obviously this would have quite catastrophic impacts on the day to day management of the council.”

Cllr Robert proposed that the standing order be suspended for six months and allow chief executive, Dr Caroline Turner, in consultation with committee chairs to decide if remote attendance for a meeting is appropriate.

Portfolio holder of Adult Social Services, Cllr Myfanwy Alexander said that she was concerned that the voting could be hacked and that decisions could be affected.

Head of Legal and Democratic Services, Clive Pinney, explained that current legal restrictions would not allow voting.

“There would have to be an alternative method of voting with a show of hands or something like that,” said Mr Pinney.

Cllr Amanda Jenner asked whether it would be possible to email questions to scrutiny meetings?

She said that poor internet connection can affect Skype or using Microsoft Teams to join meetings.

Mr Pinney said there should not be issues with questions through email but stressed not votes. Issues with regulatory committees such as the Planning Committee were also highlighted.

Cllr E Michael Jones, said: “Applicants, objectors, community councillors have the right to speak and applicants to respond and the planning department has to hit deadline regarding applications.”

Cllr Roberts thought that these meetings might need to be suspended.

Mr Pinney added: “It would be very difficult for regulatory meetings to be held by remote attendance.”

As there is no full council meeting until May, the vote to suspend the standing order took place and was passed by 45 votes to 0 and 0 abstentions.