Covid-19 financial impact needs scrutiny

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Powys County Council’s finance panel will meet online this week to discuss the impact that Covid-19 has had on the authority.

Concerns had been raised by opposition councillors that the scrutiny committee system of meetings had not re-started in Powys, after Welsh Government legislation allowing public bodies to hold meetings by remote attendance came into force on April 22.

The Cabinet will meet remotely tomorrow (Tuesday) to consider the financial impact of the Coronavirus crisis.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands that discussions took place between cabinet, senior management, senior opposition councillors and chairs of scrutiny committees to find a way of holding scrutiny meetings.

And on Friday afternoon, it emerged that a meeting of the Finance Panel will take place this Thursday by remote attendance.

They will look at the same report being discussed by Cabinet a couple of days earlier which estimates that PCC is losing £3,350,000 a month due to the crisis.

Leader of the Labour group Cllr Matthew Dorrance, who is also the chairman of the Economy Residents and Governance Scrutiny Committee said: “The Council has been taking some big decisions about the local response to COVID-19, its budget and service provision but there has been no scrutiny or input for well over a month now.

“Opposition and backbench Councillors have an important role in holding the decision makers to account and ensuring we get the right answers to important questions.”

Plaid Cymru group leader and Democratic Services committee chairman, Elwyn Vaughan (Glantwymyn), said: “We must have thorough scrutiny and transparency.”

“It’s natural that all authorities, as are businesses, are under immense pressure these days, hence it’s as important as ever that proper thorough scrutiny happens. The authority is facing a £10million deficit by the end of June.

“This is a staggering assessment and therefore it’s imperative that meetings are convened to ensure full and frank transparency before the situation gets any worse.”

Cllr Vaughan added that “only a couple of months ago” PCC had received a £9million funding boost from the Welsh Government for the 2020/21 budget.

Any further case for financial assistance from the Welsh Government would need to be justified with “an open and transparent approach” said Cllr Vaughan.

A PCC spokesperson, said: “There will be a scrutiny meeting on Thursday, May 7 looking at finance and business critical activities.”

The spokesman added that a draft schedule for scrutiny meeting was being worked on and still needed to be confirmed.

Before the lockdown in March, PCC led Wales by holding meetings of the Democratic Services Committee and Finance Panel by remote attendance.

The lack or poor scrutiny of decisions has been criticised by the Welsh Audit Office and led to the creation of an extra Powys scrutiny committee in 2019.