Better planning and organisation of who will speak on which issue is needed to make sure full council meetings of Powys County Council run quicker.
Currently, representatives of Newtown's county council wards and others in the county can ask questions at the meeting without a limit. But officers have said this is extending the meetings too long.
It is a chance for councillors to raise questions to the Cabinet and officers that affect their constituents.
Powys County Council’s head of democratic services, Wyn Richards, put forward the idea that nominated speakers were used by groups to give their collective view on an issue.
At a meeting of the council’s democratic services committee on Monday, Mr Richards explained that they could be speaking for or against a proposal and could be prioritised by the council chair.
Mr Richards said that at times it took “half an hour” to come to a consensus on an issue that could have taken “two minutes,” because a several councillors essentially in agreement want to speak.
Cllr Kathryn Silk, said: “Not only do we have everybody saying the same thing over and over but then you have those who insist on grandstanding.
“This is their opportunity for publicity, they need to be cut off. It would be good if the chair knows in advance who will be giving the different sides of the argument, so they will be heard first of all.
“If we had that in the first 20 minutes or so, and the chair said that’s it, we would know we’ve had the crux of the debate and everyone else was going to be complete waffle and has been eliminated.”
Cllr Jackie Charlton suggested that holding meetings later in the day would give more time for groups to go through the agenda and decide who would speak on what.
She added it would also help with travelling time.
Committee chairman Cllr Elwyn Vaughan was asked by Cllr Diane Jones-Poston to explain what happens at group leader meetings before full council.
Cllr Vaughan – who is the Plaid Cymru group leader, answered: “We meet at 8.30am, it’s about half an hour max, and there’s limits to what you can do.”
“What I find also, some things are stated there but when it comes to committee the scenario is different.”
Cllr Dai Davies said that in the past group leader and group meetings had been held the day before big issues were discussed.
Cllr Davies thought it could be a good idea for the future.
Cllr Sarah Williams said: “That’s just not practical it’s adding another meeting for a different day.
“We need to get into the idea of thinking that we are here for a full working day, and until we get that in to us then nothing will change.”
Cllr Vaughan said: “We’re never going to get consensus on timings of meetings. The next step for this is we need a separate group leaders meeting to discuss this.”
He expects that this could take place in September.
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service
