Councillors’ attendance “under constant review”
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter
The declaration came at a meeting of Powys County Council’s Democratic Services committee, as councillors were taken through the head of democratic and scrutiny services annual report for 2025/2026.
This report gives a detailed breakdown of the work being done by the council’s democratic services team that support and help councillors fulfil their roles.
This includes explaining that 148 committee meetings were held last year and the support that was provided to ensure they run smoothly.
The report included attendance figures which includes the three main scrutiny committees that the council operates – although it didn’t provide a breakdown of individual councillors attendance figures.
This showed that on average, the Economy, Residents and Communities (ERC) scrutiny committee had 71% average attendance across 14 meetings.
Health and Care were at 81% across 12 meetings and the Learning and Skills which also includes independent lay members as part of the committee, was at 76% from 12 meetings.
But some meetings last year were poorly attended with one Health and Care Committee meeting registering attendance of just 45% of the committee. ERC registered one with 55% attendance and the lowest figure for a Learning and Skills meeting was 45%.
Cllr Gareth E Jones (Powys Independents – Llanelwedd) asked: “Do we set targets for what we expect the average attendance to be?”
Cabinet Manager, Steve Boyd, answered: “The Standard Committee set a target of 60% and they will be reviewing that at a meeting later this month.”
Newly appointed Head of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer, Debby Jones, wanted to “elaborate” on Mr Boyd’s answer.
She said: “The Standards Committee consider the attendance of member (councillors) at meetings, and it is at 60% and if there is any fluctuation below they it is looked at.”
This means that councillors who have attended less than 60% of the meetings are asked to provide an explanation to the Standards Committee on why they had missed meetings.
Ms Jones said: “They will review that going forward, that gives assurance that it is considered by the Standards Committee.
Cllr Jones responded: “It just seems a low figure to me especially if we have committees with vacancies on them.”
He believed this meant that meetings could be held with an expectation that meetings could happen with 40% of the councillors not there.
Committee Chair, Cllr Graham Breeze (Powys Independents – Welshpool Llanerchyddol), asked Cllr Jones whether or not he wanted to make a recommendation on the topic?
Cllr Jones said that he was “happy” that the Standards Committee were keeping an eye on meeting attendance figures.
Ms Jones said that she would pass on the comments to the Standards Committee and the committee went on to note the report.
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