Appeal not to go to consultation on closing schools

Cymdeithas yr Iaith in Sir Gar has advised three village schools in the lower Gwendraeth Valley and Ysgol Blaenau, near Llandybie, to begin lobbying the Council's Education Scrutiny Committee immediately ahead of its meeting on Tuesday morning (13 October), urging it to recommend that the Cabinet does not authorise statutory consultation on the proposal to close the four village schools at the end of 2027.

On behalf of Cymdeithas yr Iaith members in Carmarthenshire, Ffred Ffransis explains:

“According to the Schools Organisation Code, a Cabinet should not authorise consultation on a proposal until it is satisfied that it is the best option for addressing the challenges raised. The public have often been misled into believing that consultation is merely an exercise in gathering views and gauging reactions. But it is in fact the first decisive step towards closing a school. Even though the consultation process is long, the basic proposal never changes as a result unless there are legal or financial obstacles.

“By proposing to close four additional village schools even before the Council has made its decision on Meidrim (at the full Council meeting on 14 October), the Cabinet has shown that it is on a mission to close village schools throughout the county outside the towns and a few large villages. All other rural and post-industrial villages will be left as retirement zones or commuter zones with no Welsh-language focus. It is the Cabinet which is driving this process, which is why it is so important to make every effort to persuade the Scrutiny Committee to recommend NOT authorising consultation.”

Ffred Ffransis added:

“Officers have been dumped with the job of producing seven hefty documents within a year to justify the closure of all these schools. In their rushed work, numerous errors have come to light and important facts and figures and options have been omitted. As a result, the Cabinet will not have the information it needs to judge whether the proposals set out are the best options on which to consult.

“Firstly, there is no attempt (or time) to provide a reliable estimate of the cost of implementing the most obvious option for Bancffosfelen, namely, dismantling this problematic ‘excess capacity’, which is mostly in a building that has been condemned, and turning the school into one with a capacity of 60-65 pupils - a level that is a foreseeable capacity for the near future. Similarly, no attempt has been made to increase capacity at Pontyberem to accommodate children from Bancffosfelen. It is therefore impossible to determine which of the two options is best to consult on.
Secondly, undertakings given to Ysgol Carwe and Ysgol Bancffosfelen that funding had been reserved for structural improvements to their school buildings have been broken.

“Lastly, several pages of the Bancffosfelen document were given to painting a full picture of the state of education at the school, but based on an Estyn report from 2018! Yet, Estyn has already carried out a new inspection this year which should present a far more positive picture. This report is due to be published next month. By the time public consultation begins on this document, it therefore will be almost a decade out of date.

“The future of our village schools and communities should not be taken so lightly. It is important that consultation and decisions are not based on documents like these.”