THE Conservative group at Powys County Council expect to hang on to the roles of chairing two scrutiny committees.

This is despite not being the biggest opposition group in county hall and only qualifying to chair one of these committees.

Last week councillors on the Independent and Independents for Powys groups announced they would merge to form the Powys Independent group, in the process becoming the biggest opposition group at the council ahead of the Conservatives.

Ahead of the council’s annual meeting on Thursday May 16, council staff have been re-calculating how many councillors from each group get to sit on each committee, with bigger groups getting proportionally more seats and committee chairs.

During the last two years the Conservative group’s Cllr Gwynfor Thomas has chaired the Learning and Skills scrutiny committee and Cllr Amanda Jenner the Health and Care scrutiny committee.

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Cllr Thomas was allowed to hold the role last year thanks to an agreement with the Independent group who under the rules could have installed one of their own to the role.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Angela Davies is the chairwoman of the Economy, Residents and Communities scrutiny committee.

This year, under the rules the executive group (Liberal Democrats) is allowed to have one scrutiny chair with the Powys Independents group allowed one and the other going to the Conservative group.

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Conservative group leader Cllr Aled Davies said: “The Conservative group will be entitled to one scrutiny chair as before.

“Cllr Gwynfor Thomas, who has been doing an outstanding job as chair of Learning and Skills, has been appointed to his position by the Independent group, I expect that agreement to continue.

“I am very proud of the Conservative contribution to scrutiny in difficult circumstances which has seen a reduction in the number of councillors on committees.”

The Conservatives do chair several other council committees.

The Finance Panel is chaired by Cllr Davies, the Planning, Taxi Licensing and Rights of Ways committee is chaired by Cllr Karl Lewis, while the Pensions and Investment committee is chaired by Cllr Peter Lewis.

These roles are decided by the individual committees in a vote when they next meet following the council’s annual meeting.