Agenda, decisions and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Councillors Iwan Huws and Llio Elenid Owen, and also from Colette Owen (The Catholic Church).

To receive any declarations of personal interest.

No declarations of personal interest were received.

To note any items that are a matter of urgency in the view of the Chair for consideration.

None to note.

The Chair shall propose that the minutes of the previous meeting of this committee held on 8th June, 2023 be signed as a true record.

The Chair signed the minutes of the previous committee meeting held on 8 June 2023 as a true record.

Cabinet Member – Councillor Ioan Thomas

To submit a report on the above.

To accept the report and to note the observations.

The Cabinet Member for Finance, the Corporate Director, the Head of Finance Department and the Assistant Head of Information Technology were welcomed to the meeting.

Submitted - the report of the Cabinet Member for Finance presenting the Digital Plan in its draft form for the purpose of pre-scrutiny, and to receive observations and feedback on the proposed content of the work programme.

The Cabinet Member set out the context, the Corporate Director explained his role as Chair of the Digital Transformation Board and the Assistant Head of Information Technology further detailed the content of the plan.  Members were then given an opportunity to ask questions and submit observations. 

It was noted that one of the recommendations of a report published by the Bevan Foundation recently, as a result of looking at the poverty situation in the Arfon area in particular, was that Cyngor Gwynedd should ensure that all application forms for grants and allowances for which it had administrative powers were available digitally.  It was noted that it was clear from this research, and also from speaking to people facing poverty and to the various organisations that supported them, that this was a problem, and it was asked whether there were plans to address the situation.  In response, it was confirmed that offering more digital provision was part of the Plan, but that there was no intention to discontinue the option of using paper forms either.

In response to a further question, it was confirmed that the forms would be digital online ones, rather than documents to be downloaded.

While accepting that the initial costs of establishing the new arrangements would be high, it was asked whether the Department was confident that the new systems would save money over time.  It was also asked whether the Department was satisfied that all aspects of the digitisation were essential, and that there were no elements included for cosmetic reasons.  In response, it was noted that:

·         Nothing cosmetic was included and that the focus was on the things that were essential and which would improve the Council once they were embedded. 

·         There would be significant work taking place over the next six weeks not only to identify the costs, but also the opportunities to make savings.

Reference was made to a letter sent out by the Council recently which gave people the opportunity to respond by going to the website, phoning or texting, and concern was expressed that those few people who did not have a computer or telephone were being left behind.  In response, it was noted that:

·         The officers needed to know about those examples, but that the digital technology was not being introduced at the expense of the other channels, and the intention was not to leave anyone behind.

·         It was important to recognise that there were still people who needed a face-to-face conversation, and although the Council wanted as many people as possible to use the digital methods, it had not completely discarded the paper element, nor the face-to-face  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To submit the report of the Scrutiny Investigation.

(i)  To approve the Gwynedd Category 3 Secondary Schools Scrutiny Investigation Report.

(ii)  To receive an update from the Cabinet Member on the implementation [GMF(1] per recommendation at the meeting on 21 March 2024.

(iii) To accept that what was undertaken by the investigation answered the requirement in terms of the notice of motion presented by Councillor Rhys Tudur to the Full Council on 4 May 2023.

The Cabinet Member for Education, the Head of Education Department, the Assistant Head: Corporate Services, the Assistant Head: Secondary and the Head of Gwynedd's Immersion Education System were welcomed to the meeting.

The Chair of the Investigation, Councillor Paul Rowlinson, presented the final report of the Gwynedd Category 3 Secondary Schools Scrutiny Investigation and members of the scrutiny committee were asked to consider the content, make observations and ask any relevant questions, proposing any amendments and approving the report.

The Chair of the Investigation suggested that the section on GwE should not be discussed in detail, as it was understood that GwE disagreed with some of the issues identified, but it was emphasised that Recommendation 17 only requested further discussion between the Education Authority and GwE.

The Chair of the Investigation thanked the Investigation Team, and especially the Lead Officer, for their work, and thanked the staff, pupils and governors of the three schools for giving of their time to present the evidence.

The Chair thanked the members of the Investigation for their work.  The members were then invited to ask questions, offer observations, or propose amendments to the report.

Special thanks were given to the pupils of the schools for their willingness to speak extremely openly with the members of the Investigation. 

It was emphasised that there was a need to give more support to organisations that helped children and young people to speak Welsh socially, such as the Young Farmers and the Urdd, and to present them in a positive way in the schools.  It was noted that Cyngor Gwynedd had lost its youth clubs and that it was necessary to find out what social opportunities were available to encourage the use of the Welsh language.

It was suggested that the figures in Appendix 5 seemed incredibly good, and it was asked where the data was obtained from.  In response, it was explained that the data was submitted to the Authority by the schools.  In response to a further question on the same matter, it was confirmed that the members of the Investigation had not challenged the figures in any detail, and that they had accepted the data submitted by the schools.

Concern was expressed that the three schools selected did not give a picture of the situation in all Gwynedd schools, as all three of them were mostly in indigenous Welsh communities, and it was suggested that there were other schools in Gwynedd that would have reflected a very different scenario.

Concern was expressed at parents' ability to refuse Welsh-medium education for their children, thereby depriving their children of the opportunity to have a good career and live in the area in the future.  It was also noted that it became evident during the Investigation that the schools were under great pressure to offer English-medium provision, as parents threatened to move their children to Ysgol Friars or Ysgol Tywyn (which were category 3T schools) otherwise.  It was believed that it was necessary to look in more detail  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Cabinet Member – Councillor Beca Brown

To submit a report on the above.

To accept the report and to note the observations.

The Assistant Head: Primary was welcomed to the meeting for this item.

Submitted - the report of the Cabinet Member for Education, at the request of the committee members, and members were asked to submit observations on the vision and objectives of the Education Department noted in the draft Education Strategy towards 2032 and beyond, and also submit observations on the Equality and Well-being Impact Assessments.

The Cabinet Member set out the context and the members were then given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations. 

With regard to the comment in the report that the document was a living one that could be visited regularly over the period of the Strategy, it was asked how easy it would be, and what the timetable would be for introducing any changes, because if it was a matter of years, or even a matter of months, it could not actually be called a living document.  In response, it was noted that:

·         The document would be reviewed internally on a regular basis.

·         As education was an area where policies could change quite quickly in different areas, the Department would respond positively to any change by having the document evolve and change as necessary.

It was noted that the report did not contain much mention of additional learning needs, apart from a reference to the Additional Learning Needs Act, and concern was expressed regarding three specific issues, namely:

·         Gwynedd's education strategy on ALN in the mainstream for the next 10 years.

·         Overcrowding in the two ALN schools in Gwynedd. 

·         The number of children in the mainstream who could not cope with the mainstream education system.

In response, it was noted that:

·         The Education Strategy was a high-level education strategy for all children in the county and that the comment regarding special education children who had additional and inclusion needs was implicit in Objective 3 - learner health and well-being, which referred to all learners.

·         The Strategy also referred to the duty the Authority had to review the school stock in the context of special schools, should it be necessary to do so.

·         Under the high-level strategy, the Authority had a Schools Modernisation Strategy for Band C which would be submitted to the Welsh Government in due course.

·         There were a number of policies and strategies in the layers below the high-level strategy, and that was where the detail would be.

The opinion was expressed that the Strategy, possibly, did not take into account the work of the Gwynedd Category 3 Schools Scrutiny Investigation (item 6 above), as the members of the Investigation emphasised the difficulties that arose as a result of the emphasis on bilingualism.  It was noted that the second objective of the Strategy was to 'Extend and strengthen our Welsh-medium and bilingual provision', but that 'bilingual' could not mean anything other English-medium provision in this context, as Welsh had already been addressed within the objective.  Therefore, it was recommended that the Education Strategy should be re-examined in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Cabinet Member – Councillor Beca Brown

To submit a report on the above.

To accept the report and to note the observations.

The Assistant Head: Special Educational Needs and Inclusion and the Education Department Inclusion Manager were welcomed to the meeting in addition for this item.

The report of the Cabinet Member for Education was presented providing information on attendance levels and exclusions across Gwynedd schools, including an outline of the main reasons for absences and exclusions.  Committee members were asked to consider whether any other aspect of attendance and exclusions needed to be scrutinised, along with the impact of the provision offered to encourage improvement in the attendance and behaviour of Gwynedd pupils.

The Cabinet Member provided the context, the Inclusion Manager detailed the content of the report and then the members were given the opportunity to ask questions and offer observations.

It was asked what accounted for the fact that behaviour and attendance problems following the COVID-19 pandemic continued, as you would have expected the children to become re-accustomed to going to school as time progressed, and for the figures to decrease.  In response, it was noted that:

·         Several of the exclusions related to violence against peers and members of school staff. 

·         There was also a significant increase in drug use, with many children now carrying drugs into school to sell, or for their own use.  It was noted that there was a case at the moment where the Service was very concerned about one pupil in Year 6.

·         Everyone expected the first year following the pandemic to be challenging, but unfortunately, things had deteriorated since then.

It was asked whether children with additional learning needs were more likely to be affected by this, and if so, to what extent.  In response, it was noted that:

·         Data was collected monthly, with an officer recording each exclusion and noting whether they were children with additional needs, whether they had an individual development plan and whether they were children who received free school meals.

·         There was no definite pattern of children in these categories, and some of the children also came from backgrounds that we would not have expected to manifest as problematic within the schools.

It was asked whether there was evidence that efforts to improve attendance, by writing to parents and making threats, etc., led pupils to disengage from the system altogether.  In response, it was noted that:

·         The number of children who were de-registered had increased, and that, in itself, was a concern for the Service.

·         The Service had welfare officers who supported families.

·         The Authority fined or prosecuted parents only as a last resort as there was no desire to lead to a greater increase in the number of pupils being home educated.

·         The Service had a specific team within the Department that looked at home educating and checked settings and the progress and standard of the education the children received.

It was noted that Gwynedd's permanent exclusions figure for 2022/23, i.e. 48, was alarming and it was asked what exactly the Authority intended to do differently from what it had done in the past, and what  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To adopt an amended work programme for 2023/24.

(i)     To accept the request from the Education Department for the Committee to consider programming an additional item and re-schedule some items that need to be scrutinised during 2023/24.

(ii)    To scrutinise the item on Additional Learning Needs in the mainstream and special schools at the meeting in March 2024.

(iii)   To adopt an amended work programme for 2023/24.

Submitted - the committee's forward programme for 2023/24.

The committee was asked to accept the request from the Education Department to consider programming an additional item and re-schedule some items that needed to be scrutinised during 2023/24, as detailed in the report.

It was noted that Additional Learning Needs in the mainstream and special schools had been denoted as a potential item for programming during the year, and calls were made for the item to be scrutinised in the March 2024 meeting in view of some of the comments that had arisen during the discussion on the Education Strategy (item 7 above).  In response, it was noted that it would be timely to scrutinise the item in March so that the scrutinisers' comments could be fed into any capital investment programme in the field in the future.

RESOLVED:

(i)        To accept the request from the Education Department to programme an additional item and re-schedule some items that needed to be scrutinised during 2023/24.

(ii)       To scrutinise the item on Additional Learning Needs in the mainstream and special schools at the meeting in March 2024.

(iii)      To adopt an amended work programme for 2023/24.