Agenda, decisions and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Councillor Rhys Tudur, Colette Owen (The Catholic Church), Gwilym Jones (NASUWT), Councillor Nia Jeffreys (Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Operational Economy Matters) and Councillor Beca Brown (Cabinet Member for Education).

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 9th November, 2023 be signed as a true record.

The Chair signed the minutes of the previous meeting of this committee held on 9 November 2023 as a true record.

Cabinet Members – Councillors Nia Jeffreys and Dyfrig Siencyn

To submit a report on the above.

To accept the report and note the observations.

The Leader and officers from the Economy and Community Department were welcomed to the meeting.

Submitted - the report of the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Economy Operational Matters invited the committee to scrutinise:-

·         The contents of the project under the 'Prosperous Gwynedd' priority area in the Council Plan, which aimed to create the best possible circumstances for businesses and community enterprises to thrive, and support the people of Gwynedd into work; and

·         The progress of the Economy and Community Department in implementing the project to trigger growth in Gwynedd's economy.

The Leader set the context and the Head of Economy and Community Department outlined the content of the report and the Economic Development Manager / North Wales Shared Prosperity Fund Manager elaborated on the specific steps in terms of support for businesses.

Since the time of writing the report, it was noted:-

·         That the process of selecting projects that would receive funding from the Shared Prosperity Fund had ended, and that over £3m would be distributed to businesses. 

·         This was far below the 185 applications worth £10m that had been received, and should the Council have more time and resources, then many more could certainly have been supported.

·         That the £1m available through the Arfor programme had been distributed to 20 businesses and, once again, the demand was much higher than the resources available.

Members were then given an opportunity to ask questions and submit observations. 

It was noted that the UK Government's method of distributing funding from the Shared Prosperity Fund was very defective.  ⁠Specific reference was made to the lack of regional and national projects, the lack of strategy on a level higher than county level, the urgency to spend substantial funding in a short period of time which meant prioritising projects that could be realised quickly and the great uncertainty regarding what would happen after April 2025.  In response, it was noted that some things were better provided on a national level, some on a regional level, some on a county level and some on an even more local level, but that no model was ideal.  There was a need to plan on which level allocations and decisions should be made, but there had been no opportunity to do so in this case due to the timetable.

It was enquired whether some proposals were funded in their entirety and the rest were being refused, or whether there was an element of partially funding some schemes.  In response, it was noted that it had been decided not to fund some proposals in their entirety to be able to support more businesses, and that all of the partially funded businesses had confirmed that it was possible for them to deliver their project within the timetable with less funding.

It was asked whether the cost to the fund of employing additional officers to administrate the scheme included redundancy costs?  A request was also made for information about the background of those officers and what would they be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Cabinet Member – Councillor Menna Trenholme

To submit a report on the above.

A lunch break is planned for 12.00pm – 1.00pm

To accept the report and note the observations.

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Support and officers from the Corporate Support Department were welcomed to the meeting.

Submitted - the report of the Cabinet Member for Corporate Support explaining that the Council had a specific duty, as part of the Equality Act 2010, to review its Equality Objectives by the end of March 2024, and she invited the input of the scrutineers to the draft objectives.

The Cabinet Member set out the context and thanked the officers for all their work in this field.

Members were then given an opportunity to ask questions and submit observations. 

It was noted that the most important thing to remember in terms of equality was that the starting point was not the same for everyone and that sometimes the starting point needed to be moved so that people with barriers which prevented them from being equal in society could move forward.   With that, it was asked which steps the Council were taking, for example, to give jobs to people with those inequalities and to give them an opportunity to step forward.  In response, it was noted:-

·         That the intention of the objectives of the Strategic Equality Plan was to try to move things forward for those people who experienced inequality and that four objectives were working towards action points on this.

·         That the first objective was involved with employment and that this was in accordance with the guidance.

·         Consideration had also been given to what else that needed to be done.  The staff had been asked to complete a questionnaire noting their characteristics, but many did not do so for various reasons, but without this information, it was not possible to know what the situation was within the Council and who needed the most encouragement.  As a result, it was decided that actions points were required which would move this forward.

·         That the Council had a legal duty to be a welcoming employer to all, and the right attitudes were needed within the organisation operating in a manner that was welcoming to all and encouraged everyone to come and work for us, e.g. it was possible to undertake reasonable adaptations to the workplace for people who felt that they needed support to come and work for the Council.

·         That there was room to improve this again and that part of the Plan on employment set an ambition to undertake specific steps towards ensuring that Gwynedd was the chosen employer for all.

It was enquired how more women could be attracted to senior managers' posts.  In response, it was noted:-

·         That the Women in Leadership field was a priority field within the Council and that a project working on changing the culture had been in place for many years and making great progress.

·         That a pilot scheme was underway examining how job application forms were being screened to ensure that there was no type of unnecessary bias.

·         In terms of other characteristics, that an equality core group met on a quarterly basis and included  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To accept the report and note the observations.

Officers of the Education Department and GwE were welcomed to the meeting.

Cabinet Member – Councillor Beca Brown

To submit the Education Annual Report for 2022-23.

Submitted - Education Annual Report 2022-23.

The Head of Education Department set out the context noting his desire to facilitate the scrutiny work by moving towards producing reports that would give more to scrutineers in terms of what we faced, but less in terms of the bulk of reports, which would also give more prominence to the challenge facing the schools, the staff and supporting services.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations. 

Disappointment was expressed that there was no reference to special schools in the report. It was noted that the report referred to the problem of recruiting classroom assistants in the mainstream, but there was no mention of the special schools where the problem was much worse. Although the work of assistants at the special schools was very intense, it was also noted that they received the same salary as mainstream assistants.  In response, it was noted:-

·         That no specific part of the report dealt with special schools, but that services referred to encompassed the primary, secondary, all-through and special sectors.  Possibly, this could be re-examined and the special sector could be explained at the next annual report.

·         The problem of recruiting assistants was not unique to Gwynedd.  Should individuals work full-time hours all-year round, it could be argued that they were on a fair salary, but as they worked less than a usual working week, and during term time only, it was difficult to attract people to the role.

·         There was work to be done to promote the jobs and profession including a campaign on social media sites and discussions with Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor with the aim of holding an event with the schools.

·         In terms of the special schools, there was a piece of work to be undertaken in terms of evaluating jobs within those schools and structures within the school which would, possibly, reflect the intensity of the work faced compared to the mainstream.

·         There was also room to examine the duties carried out by assistants on levels 1-4 in the schools to see if there were higher roles, but below a teacher, that those individuals could undertake, such as covering lessons and undertaking supply work as required.

It was enquired whether every school had now been informed of its linguistic category and what exactly was intended to ensure that the new categorisation system developed and embedded to deliver Gwynedd's ambition in this field.  In response, it was noted:-

·         That work was already being undertaken in the background in terms of commissioning an external consultant to work with the Department in respect of the Language Policy, and that a timetable was in place to get everything ready by the end of the current financial year. 

·         That there would be an opportunity for members to be part of the process of formulating the Language Policy, and it was intended to report back to this committee in March on progress against the recommendations of the Gwynedd Category 3 Secondary Schools Scrutiny Investigation.

·         What was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To submit the GwE Annual Report for 2022-23.

Submitted - GwE Annual Report 2022-23.

The Senior Regional Leader - Primary and Special Schools gave an overview of the contents of the report.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations. 

It was noted that it was wished to recognise and thank the classroom assistants for giving their time to attend training and for giving their all when undertaking the role at work every day.  In response, it was noted that it was agreed with the observation and that effective assistants added substantial value to a school.

It was noted that it was heartbreaking that experienced assistants with many years' experience and knowledge in the field were leaving to other jobs that paid a better salary.

It was noted that the report was full of complimentary adjectival language and that the first paragraph of the Executive Summary on the first page of the report was repeated word for word under the Introduction and Context heading.  In response, it was noted that the initial paragraph that appeared in the Executive Summary and in the report, itself was a quote from Estyn's findings on the service, not only locally in Gwynedd, but consistently across the 6 authorities in north Wales authorities.

It was noted that there was no disagreement with the main improvement priorities, but it was asked for assurance that the list of priorities would appear in the next annual report and that any progress against those matters would be reported.  In response, it was noted:-

·         In terms of the reporting system, that the elements identified as ones that needed developing would be incorporated in the business plans.

·         That these improvement priorities were included in the business plans that were currently operational, and when there would be an opportunity to report again within a year, these would be the grounds to show progress against the identified matters.

It was noted that there was no reference in the report to PISA tests and it was asked how GwE intended to respond to the test results.  In response, it was noted:-

·         Due to the nature and background of Wales, it appeared that Wales had been more adversely affected coming out of the Covid period than several countries that were similar to us.

·         That PISA tests were one of the Government's national indicators as something that showed how effective the education system was, but there was a risk in making statements on international tests.

·         If PISA tests would become a national indicator that was counted and measured against, that a clear national strategy needed to be in place which was supported from a government level for services such as GwE, and also to a school level to ensure that our most able pupils received the opportunities to show their ability.

It was asked how important good governors were for a school to progress and what were GwE's expectations of governors.  In response, it was noted:-

·         ⁠That the role of a governor was to be a critical friend who worked in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Cabinet Member – Councillor Beca Brown

To submit a report on the above.

To accept the report and note the observations.

          Submitted – the report of the Cabinet Member for Education detailing the journey of the Post-16 Education Project in Arfon over the past five years and she invited observations from the scrutineers.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations. 

Disappointment was expressed about the report on the grounds:-

·         That there was no mention of reconciling post-16 education across Gwynedd.

·         Although the report referred to the academic side, there was no reference to the vocational side and it was believed that separating the two cohorts of children when they were 16 years old was a huge mistake.

·         That the advantage of a tertiary college was that it kept learners together until they were 18 years old and it was sad that children in Arfon did not get the same opportunity as children in Dwyfor and Meirionnydd.

In response, it was noted that it was currently possible for pupils in Arfon to study academic and vocational subjects through the sixth form in schools.

Further information was requested regarding the Iaith Cyf company which had been commissioned to carry out research in the field on behalf of the Education Department.  In response, it was noted that the Iaith Cyf company was an external company with several decades of experience in linguistic planning and also experience in the field of education and training.

RESOLVED to accept the report and to note the observations.