Agenda and draft minutes

Councillors Peter Evans, Win Mullen-James and Co-opted Members Gill Greenland, Debra Houghton and Dr Dawn Marjoram.

The following declared personal, non-prejudicial interests:

Co-optees:

Gareth Williams – Co-opted member representing the Church in Wales on Scrutiny.

John Piper declared a personal interest – family member attends Ysgol Llanfair DC

Councillors:

Martyn Holland – member of Board of Governors for Ysgol Bro Fammau

Huw Hilditch-Roberts – Local Education Authority representative and Chair of Governors Ysgol Pen Barras, child attending Cylch Meithrin at Ysgol Pentrecelyn and resident of Pentrecelyn.

There were no urgent matters.

To consider the Cabinet’s decision of 27 October 2015 with respect to the implementation of the closures of Ysgol Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd and Ysgol Pentrecelyn on 31 August 2017, and the opening of a new dual stream, Category 2, Church in Wales Voluntary Controlled primary school from 1 September 2017 (report attached)

A report detailing the grounds on which the Cabinet decision of 27 October 2015 relating to the above schools had been called-in had been published prior to the meeting.  The report included a copy of the Council’s Call-in Procedure and Guidance Notes.  Committee members had also been provided with a link to the Cabinet report of 27 October and associated papers available on the Council’s website ahead of the meeting. 

Prior to the commencement of the discussion the Chair explained the reasons why the meeting had been called and the process that would be followed at the meeting, which would include giving an opportunity for a representative on behalf of the governing bodies of both Ysgol Llanfair D C and Ysgol Pentrecelyn to address the Committee. 

The Monitoring Officer explained the definition of ‘personal’ and ‘prejudicial’ interests as they applied to Committee members and Cabinet members. As Cabinet members were deemed to have a ‘prejudicial’ interest in the matter, they were not permitted to attend the meeting.  However, the Lead Member for Education was exempted from having a ‘prejudicial’ interest in this case as he had been invited to attend by the Committee to answer questions and points raised during the discussion. 

An explanation of the law governing the calling-in of Cabinet/Executive decisions, including the associated timescales and process was provided by the Monitoring Officer.  He explained that the Committee was required to determine at the conclusion of the debate whether or not, based on the information presented to it during the meeting, there was sufficient evidence to merit it to ask Cabinet to re-consider its original decision and the basis for the request to review.  If the Committee resolved that there were grounds to seek Cabinet to re-consider its decision, the referral would be considered by Cabinet at its next available meeting. 

Councillor Arwel Roberts, as the lead signatory of the ‘notice of call-in’ was invited to present the case to review Cabinet’s decision.  He emphasised that whilst he and his co-signatories welcomed the decision to build a new area school they were disappointed that the new school would be a Category 2, dual stream school, to replace the current Category 1 (Welsh Medium) and Category 2 schools.  They were of the view that this approach undermined national policy.  Recent decisions in Carmarthenshire had seen a Category 2 dual stream school replaced by a Category 1 school.  Denbighshire County Council had commissioned Cefin Campbell to undertake a study on the state of the Welsh Language in the county in the wake of the publication of the 2011 Census statistics on the number of Welsh speakers in the county.  One of the recommendations in Mr Campbell’s report was that the Council should take steps to support schools to move from being providers of bilingual education to providing education through the medium of Welsh.  The signatories to the call-in were of the view that the argument put forward at the recent Cabinet meeting that a Category 2 school in this particular area would deliver the same educational and linguistic outcomes as a Category 1 school would be setting a dangerous precedent for the future.  They acknowledged that Ysgol Llanfair D C was at present a high performing school and did deliver good educational and linguistic outcomes for its pupils via both the Welsh medium and English medium streams, with the majority finishing their education at the school in the Welsh medium stream.  Nevertheless, they felt that designating the new school a Category 2 school, could leave the school open to the linguistic ethos of it being diminished and diluted at some  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.