Monday, 17th December, 2012
Double indictment
It’s never looked more likely that Pembrokeshire County Council will have special measures imposed to tackle serious issues in education, following two highly critical reports both released today.
The reports, one by Estyn, which follows-up the damning inspection findings from 2011, and the other from the Wales Audit Office which examines the performance of the council, are both clear in their view that the authority has failed to make enough progress, has been slow to react, and has had weak leadership at senior management and elected levels.
What does the Estyn report say on…
...outcomes?
Adequate: The report recognises that educational achievements in Pembrokeshire’s schools have improved in 2012 at a faster rate than the whole of Wales, which is a good sign of change, and the soon-to-be-announced school gradings for Pembrokeshire secondary schools are certainly anticipated to be going in the right direction. The figures of school-leavers with no qualifications is said to be on the decrease, however it notes that at foundation and key stage two level, “too few schools” are in the top quarter of performance, which is a “deteriorating picture compared to previous years.” Attendance is adequate, with an improvement in secondary school attendance over the past two years, and there are fewer exclusions, but those that are excluded are said to be out for too long.
...provision of services?
Unsatisfactory: “The authority’s arrangements for supporting and challenging schools are not robust enough and have not had enough impact on improving outcomes.” Officers fail to recognise under-performance quickly enough, instructions to schools are not clear enough and are inconsistent, aims for improvements are not instructed, so the schools are not clear where they need to improve. The report notes that since the previous report, one school has been put into special measures and another recognised as being in need of significant improvement.
Information has been collected and monitored by schools on individual pupils, however that information has not been used well enough to evaluate progress or plan strategy. New arrangements implemented since 2011 relating to support and the wellbeing and social inclusion of students do not have appropriate performance measures identified, so the effectiveness is unclear, though officers do have a better understanding of the causes of poor attendance.
On safeguarding: Since 2011, “…the Council has not made enough progress in the management and governance of safeguarding by embedding the changes that officers and elected members have made to practices to provide adequate assurance that the improvements necessary are being delivered. ” An action plan has been implemented and is reviewed and updated regularly, however, most critically, this report recognises that the authority has “…spent too much time on taking remedial action to deal with the shortcomings identified in inspection reports, without tackling the cultural issues which led to the unsatisfactory judgments in the reports in the first place. Despite the shortcomings in safeguarding identified by the authority in their self-evaluation and by the inspectorates, the local authority has judged itself too positively, as having improved significantly.”
...leadership and management?
Unsatisfactory: “Corporate leaders and senior elected members have been too slow to recognise key issues in safeguarding and to secure continuous improvement across education services. Previously, elected members have found it difficult to scrutinise decisions adequately and hold services to account. As a result, the authority’s strategic and operational leadership has not been good enough.” The report highlights poor leadership and lack of clear planning, which makes the assessment of outcomes and evaluations of data difficult. However the report also states that the authority is “now” in a period of significant change, and “…senior officers, including the Chief Executive, are now taking a more proactive role in order to better understand the areas for development in the education department and to improve working across the council.”
...capacity to improve?
Unsatisfactory: “Corporate leaders and senior elected members have been too slow to recognise key issues in safeguarding and to change the culture in, and improve, education services; leadership at directorate and service level is weak; elected members have found it difficult to scrutinise decisions adequately and hold services to account; the authority has made limited progress in addressing recommendations from previous inspections; performance management arrangements in the education directorate are not robust enough to sustain and drive improvement; self-evaluation arrangements lack rigour and do not identify accurately areas in need of further improvement.”
— WAO Report, P.8
Both of these reports raise a number of questions, but I think the most fundamental questions have to be: why was so much time wasted? Why are only the beginnings of change just becoming visible? This is seventeen months since the 2011 Estyn report, yet this report isn’t able to evaluate the progress that has been made since. It only recognises that it has just begun, and that the means of trying to bring about these changes have not been adequately implemented. The WAO report also suggests that the changes made in 2012 are as a result of the increasing pressure from the Welsh Government Minister, rather than the council’s own will. You’ll remember back in June of this year, the leader of the council, Cllr. Jamie Adams, spoke on BBC Radio Wales on the day the Minister issued a letter stating the council was on its last warning, and needed to bring about change, and be able to demonstrate that change, quickly. This morning, the lead story of the same programme, Good Morning Wales, was the release and content of these two reports. The host told listeners that “Pembrokeshire Council…didn’t want to come on the programme,” but did send in a statement. Interviews were conducted with Cllr. Paul Miller, the leader of the Labour group on the council, and Angela Burns, the Conservative Assembly Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, who is also the party’s spokesperson for education at Cardiff Bay.
Whilst Estyn’s report centres around the schools, teaching, education and performance, the Wales Audit Office report’s attention is focused on the culture and capacity of the council as a whole in dealing with the issues.
Key messages from the WAO report…
- The Council is acting too slowly to address serious issues, such as the use of timeout rooms, and is not implementing new policies and procedures effectively.
- As a result of external reports, the Council has introduced policies and procedures that have heightened awareness of safeguarding but has not addressed the underlying causes of failings.
- The Council has acted to clarify the respective roles and responsibilities of members and officers but does not have a robust approach to ensuring they are discharged effectively.
- In the absence of clear and robust information, members require a high degree of motivation to challenge reports and require officers to provide them with sufficient and reliable information that allows them to evaluate service provision and challenge ways of working. In our view, few members demonstrate the motivation or capacity to do so.
That the council has been slow to respond, isn’t necessarily the full picture. I don’t doubt that Estyn and the WAO are correct that the council has been slow to respond, but the perception of a large number of councillors who served during the 2008-12 term when the first adverse report was released in 2011, is that the slowness to respond is down to the failure, inability, or, more likely unwillingness to recognise there were problems that needed to be sorted in the first place.
The recent media attention surrounding the vote of no confidence in the cabinet member for education, Cllr. Huw George, reminded us of the way things were down-played from the start. Both reports conclude that the council heaps too much praise on improvements – which are recognised in the report – and unfortunately, it’s looking highly likely that time has run out for Pembrokeshire County Council to keep in its hands, the ability to instruct the methods of bringing about the change that’s needed. The signs that progress has been slow have been obvious for a while. Back in the summer, I remember asking the Ministerial Board what the Minister is most likely to do if things didn’t improve quickly. The acknowledgement in these reports – of very slow cultural change, a lack of self-acknowledgment of failings, poor implementations and also of the lack of challenge to senior officers and members – is very unfortunate, but hardly surprising. It’s clear that the improvement needed could never have happened until senior management and elected figures who have had a huge stake in this for years, acknowledged it was necessary; and I feel where we are today is down to denial. In answer to my question to the Pembrokeshire Ministerial Board, I was told that, ultimately, the Minister might consider bringing in commissioners to take over education.
I find it hard to stomach that the leader of the council had a pretty good idea of what was coming in these reports last Thursday, at the meeting of council where he defended his cabinet member for education to the hilt. He unashamedly labelled Cllr. Stoddart’s motion of no confidence in Cllr. George as a “personal attack.” In the event, Cllr. George won the support of 32 councillors who voted against, and the motion of no confidence was defeated. But with 15 votes for and 9 abstentions, and now today, a clearer picture of what has gone on since 2011; further questions over accountability should certainly be asked by the public.
This morning I also became aware that there are recommendations relating to safeguarding and service planning from an inspection report in 2008 which have still not yet been implemented by Pembrokeshire County Council. Could backbench members of the council, head teachers, teachers, parents and children ever have trusted the necessary change from the 2011 reports to come about willingly from those with the ability to act? I’m not convinced, it doesn’t sound like the inspectors are, and I expect the minister, who has shown undeniable patience, isn’t far from revealing his hand.
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Is it therefore the case that there was no one on the Council, INCLUDING THOSE outside of the IPG, that took a formal interest in any of these inspection reports and asked for progress reports in the period following their publication?
To me, those ‘in control’ have clearly failed as stated but those ‘in opposition’ (or backbench as they’re referred to here) cannot be exonerated. Similarly, on the education issues, to suggest that head teachers are passive and should wait for/react to ‘lay’ politicians as their source of leadership in respect of inspection findings is frankly as concerning as many of the other issues. These are professionals and as such have to meet professional standards. Presumably there must be issues here also?
Now is surely the time for PCC to be run by commissioners as in the recent Anglesey model. I happen to believe that the problems with education are very illustrative of a wide ranging corporate arrogance which has brought this Council to ‘a brink’. The Minister may as well now dive fully over.
This MAY be the only way that there is any sort of effective democratic renewal within the County and no amount of ‘fiddling whilst Rome burns’ on the misuse of IT would ever get the electorate’s (or BBC’s) attention, (or flags by the way!).
‘Backbench’ and ‘opposition’ are not the same or interchangeable. There are controlling-group backbenchers just as there are opposition backbenchers.
The report also concludes that inclusion and access to information for members of council – all members of council – has not improved since January 2012. I’m not sure how councillors since this time, even with the best will in the world, could have brought about change that would have altered the conclusions and recommendations of these reports, but I’m sure, since May at least, it is not for a lack of interest. Members have not been allowed the chance, I feel.
I suppose it goes to show that the denials have betrayed members of the council as well. The evidence shows weak leadership from officers and senior politicians, and another constant thread through this saga is the cosy relationships between senior officers and senior members, and between those and headteachers. Not enough ‘challenging’ was going on.
I think you might just see the commissioners coming in. As I understand, the council has 50 days to draw up some action plan to convince the Welsh Government, which today issued a statement saying it will “respond to the reports as soon as possible.”
For the first time, in a long while, I felt ashamed. Unfortunately, I do believe in corporate responsibility.
I sat in the meeting where the Estyn representative told me that the Council was failing the children and schools of Pembrokeshire. I listen quietly to direct but honourable questions from Members. There was no ranting or wild statements. Generally there was a feeling of disbelief and sadness at how bad the reports actually were. HOW could we all be so poorly led? How could we be all lulled by words into believing that these reports would be not too bad. GREEN SHOOTS were appearing… we were reassured 🙁 I was too upset and angry to add my voice to those standing up and being counted.
I am tired of all platitudes that the leadership at County Hall wheel out constantly. I have lost all confidence in those in power. Very quickly I am losing respect!
Jamie! The buck does have to stop somewhere. Now, you either lead and get the scalpel out or you consider your own position. How many adverse reports do you need? If people cannot do the honourable thing and resign then they must be sacked.
I had hoped that the needs of Pembrokeshire and its children would be paramount. The time for talking is long over. Swift action is the only thing that will save us all from being branded as unsatisfactory.
Thank god I am not a member of the IPPG. Today I would have resigned. It’s time some of those who only give them tacit support considered their position.
What a sad day for us all 😥
Recently, Jacob submitted a notice of motion proposing more frequent meetings of The Council. (At the moment there are five a year). Each cycle or round of committee meetings culminates in a Council meeting.
The proposal was referred to the Corporate Governance Committee with advice from officers that the status quo was OK. This recommendation “to do nothing” was approved by the majority of Councillors at full Council.
The previous Leader ordered a comprehensive review of the Constitution. This has never been undertaken and needs to be visited to ensure that all councillors (or it seems, those that want to) are able to play a full part in the Council’s activities.
As a start Council could remove the power from the Leader to nominate his Cabinet.
Hi John,
As you say, that notice of motion to increase the number of meetings from five per year was submitted by me, and you are right that when it went to corporate governance committee, the officer’s recommendation held firm. As I was addressing corporate governance, I could see the idea of meeting more often was unconscionable to some, so I suggested the amended wording that would enable a survey of members to take place to ascertain their views on the frequency of meetings. That recommendation was carried, and was resolved at the October meeting of full council, but as yet, this survey hasn’t been circulated to members.
The argument that committees are held in a cycle is an easy get-out, now at least. It harks back to the old committee system pre-cabinet days, and business that gets dealt with at committees can be brought to the nearest meeting of full council regardless of how many meetings there are of full council. For instance, cabinet meets at the start of every month – and as you know, rightly or wrongly, there’s a lot of business that gets batted off to cabinet to come back to council for approval – see the motion of no confidence in Huw George!
On a related matter, Directors have delegated authority to spend within the budgets approved by the Council. In addition the Director of Finance has full delegated power to spend the reserves both capital and revenue.
It is about time, especially in the current climate, that our elected members gained control of the council’s finances and imposed some restriction on officers’ spending. I expect officers would not wish to see this inconvenience.
I note that the Director of Finance has approved an increase in the fees payable to care homes, yet the Adult Service budget was already projected to overspend by some £1.5m.
Apparently Cabinet had been informed of this but were told that it could be met from the Council’s overall resources. Quite where the further increase in care home fees is to come from hasn’t been explained either.
No one thought to ask where and what, if any, the effects would be on services.
I notice that you are inviting us to vote (top right corner of your site) as to our opinion of the crime that we are most concerned about. Can you add “deceiving the electors” to this list?
I’d like to ask how come we, despite being quite a small poor Council in Wales, have such a highly paid Chief Exec in Mr Parry-Jones (higher than the PM because we have to “pay the most to get the best”?)
The councillors’ remuneration package is pretty good too, compared with other Welsh councils.
Regarding the embarrassing situation we find ourselves in now? There should be resignations forthcoming if they are decent, but they will just keep their heads down if they like the salary and don’t care for accountability.
As a lover of Tenby and the county in general I would imagine that most local people would be surprised that this situation has come out like this.
Let’s face it, mistakes are made and councillors are lay people after all. They have to listen to, and generally do follow advice of highly paid experts.
If the advice they are offered is sub-standard and leads to the situation that has arisen now it must be right though that political leaders take the blame and resign. This is because they clearly did not ask the right questions of the officers.
In respect of the councillors who did not support the motion of no confidence I suspect they are feeling pretty silly now including those who for some obscure reason abstained.
I would say the cabinet member with responsibility for education should resign. I also believe that someone should look into why so many headmasters of local schools placed themselves in what must now be an embarrassing situation by having written letters of support for Cllr Huw George.
Bearing in mind the success of your crime poll, may we have a survey on whether or not the leader of the IPG+, the Chairman of Education, and the Chief Executive should resign?
I have read with interest the content of this website as well as ‘Old Grumpy’s’. I am horrified that the vote of no confidence was held before the recent Estyn reports came out.
I follow all council committee meetings surrounding children’s welfare, and can see clearly that there is never any challenge. More disturbingly, the guidance on the use of Time Out rooms in Pembrokeshire was written without even consulting with parents or more importantly, listening to the views of those young people who were locked in them.
The recent BBC coverage of a mother fighting for her 8 year old’s education demonstrates that these rooms are still being used as a means of punishment or segregation. Not only this, but parents who have children with difficulties have to fight for adequate provision concerning education. Most Cllrs sit on School Governor panels, yet there is no challenge at council meetings, just declarations of conflicts of interest if a relevant school is being discussed.
Perhaps you could place a public vote on your website regarding Cllr Huw George?