On  March 1, St David's Day, Powys County Council expects to reveal the care provider who will take over a dozen care homes all across the county.

The process of finding a partner to take over the Bupa Care homes will be finalised in the next couple of months.

There are three companies in the running to win the contract.

Next week, the deadline for final bids will pass and by the middle of January the authority will have chosen a preferred company.

Then, they will work for around six weeks to finalise the deal before unveiling the partners on March 1 who will take over the homes a couple of months later.

Independent county councillor Heulwen Hulme, who represents Rhiwcyncin, asked at for an update at the Health, Care  and Housing Scrutiny Committee.

"Are we where we need to be at this point in time,"asked Cllr Hulme.

Dylan Owen, head of transformation for Adult Services, replied: "The answer is yes. We have the tender out at the moment, it's a negotiation.

"A number of companies came back to us and of those we have then put it to tender with three parties.

"We will receive their final bids on December 17. Then we will be evaluating those.

"And from Mid-January we will be going to our preferred partner.

"We will then be working with them and negotiating the exact details of the contract.

"We are hoping that we will be able to announce our partner on March 1, that's what we are working towards. This will give us until the end of May to transfer staff."

Committee chairman, Cllr Gwilym Williams (Conservative, Disserth and Trecoed), asked if the staff were being transferred by TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006) ?

Mr Owen, confirmed that this would be the case adding that a contingency plan is also being worked on, just in case.