A WRITTEN response by senior Powys councillors explaining what heed they have taken of advice from scrutiny committees on proposals could be needed soon before Cabinet decide them.
This is one of several more potential changes to Powys County Council’s constitution that came before councillors at a meeting of the Democratic Services committee on Wednesday, October 1.
Head of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer, Clive Pinney took councillors through proposals to section seven of the council’s constitution, which deals with the role of scrutiny committees.
The main changes he proposed were enshrining the committee’s role of scrutinising reports before they go forward to Cabinet meetings for a decision.
Mr Pinney told the committee that “observations” from the three scrutiny committee chairs, Cllrs Angela Davies, Amanda Jenner and Gwynfor Thomas to Democratic Services committee Chairman Cllr Graham Breeze is that under the current system their recommendations may not receive a formal written response before the decision is taken by Cabinet.
This is because of the timescales involved; there is occasionally very little time between scrutiny and subsequent Cabinet decisions, explained Mr Pinney.
Currently two full months can elapse between senior councillors taking decisions at Cabinet level and members of the scrutiny committee receiving feedback on whether they agreed, took some heed or ignored advice on the issue.
Often this advice, that comes in the form of recommendations and observations, can be critical of the decision about to be made by Cabinet.
Mr Pinney said: “The suggestion from the chairs of scrutiny for rule 7.26.2 is that Cabinet should provide a written response before a decision is taken.”
Cllr Breeze (Powys Independents – Welshpool Llanerchyddol) said: “This is a matter that gets raised quite regularly in scrutiny committees, I fully support this one.”
Cllr Iain McIntosh (Reform UK – Yscir with Honddu Isaf and Llanddew) asked whether any “changes” to proposals that are made at Cabinet level following scrutiny would come back to the committee to scrutinise again.
Mr Pinney said that this would not be needed as the “call in” process for decision covered these instances.
Mr Pinney said: “There is always an opportunity for any changes to be called in.”
Cllr McIntosh wanted a mechanism put in place to highlight any changes in the decision taken by Cabinet from when it was looked at by scrutiny.
Cllr McIntosh said: “It only takes a few words to change something significantly, so it needs to be made blatantly obvious, so people recognise it.”
Mr Pinney suggested: “Can I take that away and deal with as a protocol on how we publish, and we’ll report back on how we feel that can be done?”
Councillors agreed to this move.
The changes to the section will need to be agreed by all councillors at a future full council meeting before they come into force.
