HolDING all Powys council meetings in person would be a “backward step” that would harm councillors who work full time or have caring responsibilities, a Llanidloes councillor has said.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Democratic Services committee on Monday, 8 January councillors received the findings of a review for the “new ways of working,” which includes looking at how council meetings are run and what time they should start.

The review follows a decision by all councillors at a meeting last May to refer the matter back to the committee after questions were asked on whether the proposals complied with legislation.

Since then all councillors had been asked for their views on the subject.

Most chose 10am as a preferred time for committee meetings to start and also for full council meetings to be moved to 10am rather than the current 10.30am.

It was also recommended in the report that each committee Chair considers holding at least one in person meeting a year, and that all committee meetings at the start of a council term are held in person at County Hall for a period of six months.

Interim Head of Transformation and Democratic Services Catherine James said that this was to help councillors “build up relationships” with each other, but Llanidloes county councillor Glyn Preston said he believed that holding all meetings in person at county hall for the first six months of a new council term would be a “backward step.”

“It’s my understanding that guidance sets out by Welsh Government requires that our meetings have a hybrid option,” he said.

“Looking at some of these options we need to be a bit more specific about the language.

“A chair may want to encourage but can’t mandate an in person meeting.

“We don’t want to become an authority where only those who are independently wealthy, self-employed or retired can attend meetings.

“Mandating lots of meetings to happen in person in county hall would be prohibitive to people like me who work full time and those with caring responsibilities.

“It should be up to councillors to decide how well they want to get to know their colleagues.

“It shouldn’t be up to council to force people into a room to get to know one another.”

Powys County Council’s head of legal and monitoring officer, Clive Pinney said that the guidance from the Wales Local Government Act 2021 is a “little vague” and “open to interpretation.”

“The best practice is to have a hybrid option available,” he said.