Powys Council has returned to the emergency mode adopted during the height of the coronavirus crisis amid a rise in cases in Wales.

The return to business continuity mode means the authority will be concentrating on its most vital services, and looking for volunteers among its staff to be redeployed from non-essential to frontline services such as social care.

It also means that several council scrutiny meetings scheduled for this month have been cancelled, as staff are unavailable to discuss issues with councillors and clerking staff are being re-prioritised.

The details were revealed at a meeting of the economy, residents, communities and governance scrutiny committee on Monday, December 14.

Committee chairman Cllr Mathew Dorrance raised the issue as he sought clarity on the council's situation in an attempt to clarify whether some items could come forward for discussion.

Head of democratic services and scrutiny manager, Wyn Richards, told him: “I can confirm we’re in business critical mode at the moment and will continue to be so for the time being.

“We’re now trying to limit the length of meetings as well just to ensure we have officer capacity to be able to do everything.”

Head of legal services Clive Pinney added: “We’re also trying to get staff to go back on the redeployment list so that we can support our front line staff.

“I’m afraid we’re going backwards at this moment in time.”

Cllr Dorrance said that they had explained why there had been no movement in the work plan.

“It is what it is, and I think we all understand and accept the reasons,” he added.

PCC first entered business continuity mode on March 23 as tthe UK enetered lockdown.

For a six-week period all meetings were cancelled and started again by remotely attendance using Microsoft Teams, from May 5.

Meetings were kept to an hour and were broadly to scrutinise Powys Council's response to the pandemic.

In June, councillors started asking for longer meetings, looking at a broader range of issues.

On Wednesday, December 16, Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford MS announced Wales would enter a lockdown after the Christmas period, from December 28.