Council starts remote meetings

Welcome to the modern world Powys County Council!

A public Powys County Council meeting was held remotely for the first time due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Democrat Services committee meeting was used to test holding meetings using Microsoft Teams software (pictured).

Committee chairman, Cllr Elwyn Vaughan welcomed members by thanking councillors for “logging in and testing things out”.

At the end of the meeting a discussion on how the remote meeting went was held with Head of Democratic Services, Wyn Richards, asking for feedback.

Cllr Dan Rowlands, said: “I’d like to say well done. I think it’s fantastic and definitely the way forward, it saved two hours of my time today and means I can pick up my kids from school.”

But, Cllr Stephen Hayes pointed out that the meeting was supposed to be open to the public.

Mr Richards answered: “What we’re doing is put information on our website to say the meeting is being held electronically and that anybody who wants to access it should contact us in democratic services.

“So long as we have an email address we can send them a team’s link, they can access the software and sit there and hear what’s going on. This is definitely a work in progress.”

Head of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer, Clive Pinney, pointed out that there were still “problems” with holding meetings by remote link.

Due to Welsh Government regulations, “significant decisions” can’t be made or voted through. He said that “all local authorities” were raising this with the Welsh Government.

Mr Pinney, explained: “We’re hoping that Welsh Government will do something about it.

“AGMs (annual meeting) are supposed to take place in May according to law and all monitoring officers are impressing on the Welsh and UK government’s that there should be some relaxation of that.

“We would not really want 73 councillors in the chamber exposing them to unnecessary risk.”

At the full council meeting on March 5, a motion was voted through to temporarily suspend a standing order in the authority’s rules, that prohibits meetings being attended remotely.

This now allows chief executive, Dr Caroline Turner, and committee chairs to decide whether remote attendance for a meeting is appropriate.

The decision was taken so that coronavirus does not affect the day-to-day running of PCC which could have seen all meetings suspended for the duration of the outbreak.

Other meetings already scheduled to take place remotely include the Finance Panel and a Local Development Working Group on Friday, March 20 and the Audit committee on Monday, March 23.