A MEETING between a Powys Senedd Member and Audit Wales is being set up to discuss concerns about the local planning authority members of a council committee have been told.
At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Governance and Audit committee meeting on Friday, May 23 criticism of the council’s planning service was made in a statement last month by Conservative MS for Montgomeryshire Russell George and were brought up at the meeting with Audit Wales Staff.
Audit Wales staff were in the meeting to update the committee on work they are doing with the council during the next year.
Mr George had called for a further independent review of the service due to the volume of concerns he receives from constituents about Powys’s planning service.
Committee vice chairman and lay member John Brautigam said: “There was an adverse planning report in 2023 which was followed up in 2024 with a very much more favourable document.
“But I was disturbed to see in the press last month that our local MS (Russell George) had written to the auditor general (Adrian Crompton) complaining about systemic failures in planning.
“I wonder what progress has been made towards resolution of this matter?”
Gareth Jones of Audit Wales said: “We have received the correspondence from the MS and arrangements have been made to meet and to understand the concerns he wishes to raise with the auditor general.
“Once we’ve received those concerns we will consider whether or not that falls is in our remit and work programme abilities.”
Committee chairwoman, Lynne Hamilton said: “The committee will be looking for an update in due course and to be advised if there’s further work planned.”
Two years ago, in May 2023m Audit Wales published a damning report into the state of Powys council’s planning service and issued a number of recommendations for the council to address.
In response, the council set up an internal board to help steer improvements in the service.
This seemed to bear fruit as last November, Audit Wales issued a follow up report which said that “overall” they had found that Powys planners had “responded quickly” to improve its arrangements.
They said that the planning service has: “implemented the 2023 recommendations in full.”
But the follow up report was limited to examining documents and interviewing “a sample” of planning officers, councillors and senior staff.
In April Mr Russell said that he had written to the Auditor General for Wales, raising continued and serious concerns regarding the performance of the planning service.
Mr George believed that the follow-up review did not provide a “comprehensive examination” of planning.
In particular Mr Russell said the report did not evaluate the overall performance of the department, nor did it assess the merits or handling of individual planning applications.
