Agenda item

Welsh-medium Education Consultation Proposal / Cynnig Ymgynghori ar Addysg Cyfrwng Cymraeg

To consider the report of the Corporate Director Education.

Minutes:

The Chair and Councillors J.C. Morgan, and T. Smith declared an interest in the following item and upon advice from the Monitoring Officer remained in the meeting. Therefore, the Vice-Chair, Councillor J. Holt took the Chair.

 

Consideration was given to the report of the Corporate Director of Education which was presented to seek the views of the Education and Learning Scrutiny Committee, in relation to the proposal to consult upon the creation of a new 210 places Welsh-medium primary school in the Tredegar/Sirhowy valley.

 

The Director of Education spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.   The Education and Learning Scrutiny Committee would be statutory consultees upon the proposal. 

 

In response to a Member’s question regarding the £6.2m allocated by the Welsh Government, the Director of Education said the allocation had been made on an ‘in principle’ basis and earmarked for this initiative.  There had been recent dialogue with the Welsh Government indicating that this allocation was still available for use within Blaenau Gwent, subject to the consultation.  The Member had concerns that if the consultation goes against the proposal the Welsh Government would look to have the £6.2m back. The Director said a lot of work had been undertaken by the Education Transformation team to access the capital funding, and that clearly it was a priority within the WESP to increase the numbers of Welsh learners to meet statutory obligations.  There was a now a need to formally seek stakeholder views as part of the consultation process before formally taking the proposal forward.

 

A Member enquired if the school was to be built in phases as only 48 places would initially be used leading up to the 210 places over the next six years.  The Director said that, subject to approval of the proposal, Technical Services had indicated that from a capital cost perspective it would be better to have one contract for construction of the school, and then subsequently open aspects of the school as learner capacity increased.  

 

The Education Transformation Manager said there were opportunities for phasing that would be looked at, and subject to the outcome of the statutory processes, a detailed analysis around the costs and benefits associated with the phasing and the development of the proposal would be considered.

 

With regard to the site investigation work already carried out, a Member enquired regarding the budget for those works.  The Director explained those costs had been charged against the Education Capital programme and were minimal costs i.e. mining investigations and desktop studies that would be charged back to the capital cost associated with the initiative.

 

A Member commented that he supported the consultation going forward and only when the facts were put before Members could a decision be reached regarding this proposal.

 

Another Member said he supported the consultation and hoped it would be Blaenau Gwent wide with every school, and staff and parents involved.  He said that capital resources to build the school was one thing, but he had concerns with revenue costs and the effect on the ISB budget.

 

Another Member also supported the consultation to obtain views of the wider community as the proposed site would affect some communities more than others.  He made the point that the consultation had already been reported in the South Wales Argus which raised some concerns. 

 

The Director confirmed the consultation would be county borough wide with an opportunity for local communities’ comments to be fed into the consultation and would also include views of neighbouring authorities as Welsh-medium provision was provided on a regional basis.  He reassured the Member, that the formal consultation, if approved, would not start until the 17th December, 2020.  The article in the press would have been in relation the report that was on the agenda for today.

 

A Member referred to consultation and enquired if School Governors would be included. The Director said that consultation with School Governors was a key part of any statutory consultation process linked to school organisation and virtual consultation meetings could be held during the consultation period.  The Education Transformation Manager confirmed that as stipulated in the consultation document any requests for virtual engagement sessions could be arranged.

 

In relation to the 20 day school consultation period, a Member enquired if this would be extended if schools were in lockdown in January.  The Director said that it was anticipated that Welsh Government would be clear that schools would be officially open in January, even if they were working around remote and blended learning.   Consultation would be different this time due to the COVID-19 situation, face to face meetings may be convened if it was safe to do so, however, it was anticipated that January would be a difficult time in terms of the amount of prevalent cases of COVID-19 and most meetings would take place virtually.

 

Having declared an interest in this item as a School Governor, the Member said that if there was consultation with School Governors then there should be consultation with school staff and Headteachers within the Borough and the Tredegar area.  He enquired where Members would stand in the consultation moving forward being a Scrutiny Member on the Education & Learning Scrutiny Committee and also being a School Governor. The Director said that from prior consultation exercises Members who had been on Scrutiny Committees and been on Governing Bodies and had been engaged and offered their views and opinions around the proposal.  Members had checked this with the Monitoring Officer prior to the meeting and he advised that this would not exclude Members from offering views as Governors and as representatives on the Scrutiny Committee in terms of the overall proposal.

 

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 1; namely that the report, associated document and course of action be accepted.

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