Shropshire Star

Council introduces new questions policy

A three-month trial period which will allow councillors to ask questions “at any time” to cabinet members and senior staff has been approved.

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Powys County Council

The recommendations from the democratic services committee were approved by Powys County Council at its full meeting on Thursday, October 10.

The idea follows a model working at Newport City Council.

Councillors could expect an answer in 10 days and the question and response would be uploaded to the council's website.

Other motions included having a deadline for amending motions to council and democratic services, chair and leader of the Plaid Cymru group, councillor Elwyn Vaughan said: “There are two parts to this report. The first one is to do with asking questions here at the full council.

“For many reasons, there were reasons to review the time full council takes but also ensuring that there is transparency for councillors and members of the public.

“We recommend adopting a three-month trial, a scheme that has been used by Newport City Council, so there is no need to wait for a full council meeting to ask a formal question.”

Councillor Vaughan explained that the question would need to be replied to in 10 days.

Experiment

And that both question and answer would both be place on the website.

The second part would be to experiment with a system used at The Senedd, that groups would have spokespeople on certain topics.

“We will have a workshop to explain how this will all work,” said councillor Vaughan.

Councillor Roger Williams asked if councillors could still ask questions at full council meetings.

Clive Pinney, head of legal services, replied: “It says so in the paper.

“The idea is for members not to have to wait for (full) council and therefore have a stream of questions.”

Councillor Williams added: “I’m very happy with the recommendations.”

The report was approved by 48 votes for, one against and no abstentions.

The average time for a full council meeting in Wales is two hours and 39 minutes.

And the last four full council meetings that PCC have had – not including the October 10 meeting – have been timed at three hours 44 minutes, two hours 54 minutes, four hours 52 minutes, and six hours 19 minutes.