HOPES are high that Powys County Council (PCC) will maintain its high ranking in Wales when the Public Accountability Measures (PAMs) for 2019/20 come out at the end of the year.

At the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, November 5, portfolio holders discussed the PAM’s report for last year so that they understand where Powys stands in relation to the other 21 local authorities in Wales.

For 2018/19, Powys was ranked fifth out of the 22 local authorities in Wales.

Finance portfolio holder, Cllr Aled Davies (Conservative – Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant/Llansilin), said: “These are the PAMs for 2018/19 they are 32 measures that assess performance across a range of council services.

“Of these, 22 measures are currently available for national comparison.

“A full picture of all Wales performance cannot be provided until December 2019.

“We have some key statistics in this report and the overall view we are actually in fifth.

“Clearly there is some good stuff happening but there are issues around some areas.”

Cllr Rosemarie Harris, (Independent, Llangynidr), said: “I think if we can maintain this position of fifth in Wales I think that’s quite remarkable given the pressures and all the issues we have to deal with.

“And given that we are bottom of the pile in terms of finance in Wales.

“I’d like to congratulate all the officers involved.”

The PAMs show that 69 per-cent of the measures have improved or maintained performance during 2018/19.

Highlights see Powys ranked:

Number one for the number of visits to sports and leisure facilities during the year.

Third for the least number of employee absences through sickness.

 Second for the number of days taken to complete repairs to housing stock (although not all local authorities have housing stock).

But the lowlights are:

Bottom – 22 of 22 for the percentage of rent loss due to potential homes being empty during the year.

20th for the average number of days taken to clear fly-tipping incidents.

Bottom – 22 of 22 for the percentage of “C” roads that are in poor condition.