Council Leader & Chief Executive “held the baton together” in running council during early months of the pandemic

Insight has been given on the decision making process during the early month of the pandemic at Wrexham Council.

All scheduled meetings for the local authority were cancelled back in early March, with some services stopped and staff repurposed in an immediate response to the pandemic. That situation has changed, with services reopening and meetings reappearing via the popular Zoom video conferencing app.

During that time decisions have been made and work ongoing, and with documents before councillors now including lines that seek “retrospective support for decisions” we asked the Chief Executive and the Leader of Wrexham Council about that process, what the point of it was if decisions have been made, and what would happen if councillors did not support the decisions.

Chief Executive Ian Bancroft said: “As officers, we wouldn’t have wanted to have been put in the position we have been over the last six to seven months, where there are some things that have had to been taken as emergency decisions because of the speed that’s needed to happen.

“We’re really happy to be passing the baton back to members.

“What you shouldn’t be seeing is anywhere near the amount of emergency decisions, even though we’ve taken very few to be fair, and all of those get reported back to the next available committee, so the first committee that happens.

“So if it was an Executive Board decision the Executive Board have now received all of those and will receive them if any further ones are taken, and it is the same with Council or any others like Licensing.

“It’s absolutely critical in terms of transparency we report those so that members can discuss them and can challenge them, that the public can see those as well.

“Ultimately, policies can be changed, decisions can be re-decided upon. If somebody is fundamentally at odds with a decision that’s been made, it allows the ability to have debate, but also if we’ve got a policy wrong, just like we would do normally, Executive Board can revisit it in 3, 6 or 9 months, in terms of wanting a review of it or wanting to change what’s happened.”

Council Leader Mark Pritchard said: “Ian has mentioned the ‘baton’, and it’s probably a good example, I think we’ve held the baton together. It hasn’t just been Officers going away, we’ve had discussions, we’ve had challenges, we’ve had zoom meetings, the council has carried on running and operating with political challenge, and with political support for obvious reasons.”

Explaining the process he added: “I suppose it’s so people can look back in the future and see that there was accountability, we are all accountable for what decisions have been made during COVID whether its education where Cllr Phil Wynn has been briefed and involved heavily, or whether it’s the environment, or public transport where Cllr David Bithell has been involved, if it’s finance, it’s myself. This council has still been operating with political support and challenge for obvious reasons and that’s the way it should be.

“I’ve seen it as a true partnership, working together to support the people of Wrexham through COVID-19. There’s has been no politics at all during this time, and I asked for that very early days. To be fair, we got it. I think there’s been full support from all parties to support everything we’ve done in these extremely difficult times, and we’re not over it yet either.”

Top pic: Baton sharers Cllr Pritchard and Chief Executive Bancroft.