Calls have been made for Powys County Council to improve its interaction with the public, after a slump in the number of people offering feedback - and a big drop in positive attitudes among those who do. 

A joint meeting of all three of Powys County Council’s scrutiny committees on Wednesday, February 28 looked at a performance report of the Corporate Strategic and Equality, Strategic Plan, for the period from the end of September to the end of December.

This plan is supposed to keep track of how the council is performing against the three objectives of the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet’s Stronger, Fairer, Greener agenda.

A section in the report looks at how people interacted with the council’s “engagement” activities.

Head of transformation and corporate services Catherine James said the council also has a 'people’s panel' and an 'engagement hub' for people to give feedback.

The panel comes from residents who have a “My Powys” account - of the 60,000 people registered, 5,543 are members of the panel.

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During this period, the council held 13 “engagement activities” which included a school closure proposal, day care opportunities and a survey on the 2023/2024 budget.

The data in the report shows 6,064 people visited the engagement hub and that 1,943 people gave their opinions to the council.

In feedback to the council only 13 per cent of respondents said they would “speak positively” about the council which compares to 25 per cent from quarter one.

Cllr Adrian Jones said: “I was a bit concerned with the 13 per cent positive feedback and it’s dropped from 25 per cent.

“That’s quite significant.”

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Ms James explained that it was down to the number of people who had completed feedback forms after giving their views.

Ms James said: “In quarter one we had 105 people respond and in quarter three only 36 people actually responded.

“The figure is based on 36 people which is not representative of the county, and this is why we are encouraging people to participate so we can actually understand what people are thinking.

“As an organisation we know we need to do more to improve the engagement responses we are getting.”

The joint scrutiny committee was chaired by Liberal Democrat, Cllr Angela Davies who is the chairwoman of the Economy, Residents and Communities (ERC) scrutiny committee.

Cllr Davies said: “The way the council overall interacts with the public would be for the ERC scrutiny committee to investigate more thoroughly.

“What’s going on, what are we doing well and what are we doing not so well.”

“There’s a bit more work to do behind those numbers.”

The report will go on to be presented at a cabinet meeting on March 19.

To have a look at the consultation/engagement hub visit https://www.haveyoursaypowys.wales