Senior Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors responsible for social services in Powys were grilled by opposition councillors to find out how good a handle they have on the department’s performance.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Health and Care committee, which scrutinises Social Services on Thursday, December 19, the monthly performance report for both Children’s and Adults’ social services was brought up for discussion.

However, the reports themselves remain confidential, with only councillors on the committee having access to them.

Legally, these reports should be published along with the meeting agenda if their contents are going to be discussed in public, or the committee could choose to hold the item in confidential session.

Committee chairwoman, Conservative Amanda Jenner said: “This is a new-ish standing item where councillors will have a look through the monthly performance reports.”

She explained that this would give committee members the opportunity of quizzing social service chiefs and cabinet members responsible for the area on aspects of the report.

Cllr Jenner asked: “How do you as portfolio holders read use those reports, where do you go to first to quickly check if things are OK or view the red flags?”

Harking back to the highly critical Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) report into Children’s Social Services in 2017, Cllr Jenner said that this type of report was not available then.

Cllr Jenner said: “One of the CIW criticisms was that councillors and senior officers could legitimately say that they didn’t know there was a problem as they didn’t have the data.”

Cabinet member children’s social services, Cllr Sandra Davies (Labour) said: “I look for anything that has changed and that comes through on the amber (risk traffic light system) and I ask questions on that.

“I have weekly meetings and if there is anything of concern they are highlighted to me. ”

She added that she could also be contacted by senior staff members to deal with any emerging issues.

Liberal Democrat cabinet member for adult social services, Sian Cox said: “The monthly reports are very important to me.

“I tend to look at all of it and have a think if anything stands out and ask questions.

“The really important section for me is the front door, which is related to prevention and keeping people well and independent.

“Timely flow and discharge from hospital is such a key area for us and whether the figures are going up or not.”

She added that she also kept an eye on the average age of people in Powys entering residential care and that younger people are not going into care homes.

Cllr Cox added: “Workforce and staff wellbeing is very important and I keep an eye on the reasons why people leave as we want to keep the number of agency staff down.”

Discussion ended and Cllr Jenner explained that this item will be kept on the agenda for future meetings.

In November, it was revealed that the social services need a financial bailout of just under £6 million to deal with mounting costs of provision in this year’s budget.

At a full council meeting earlier this month councillors agreed to provide an extra £3.1 million for social services - which still leaves a funding gap of just under £4 million which may still need to be plugged by the end of March 2025.