An emergency meeting has been called after a dire report into a county's schools and education service. After inspecting Powys Local Education Authority Estyn found "significant concerns" across all areas as it put the LEA into its second highest level of monitoring.
Inspectors found "weakness" in the education service at all leadership and officer levels. They also highlighted school site "security issues".
Inspection outcomes in secondary and all-age schools "have been poor over time"and the proportion of primary schools in Powys being placed into Estyn follow up is generally greater than that nationally, a 16-page report from Estyn said.. In the face of the damning report Powys Council leader Cllr James Gibson-Watt has called for an extraordinary meeting of council. Read the biggest stories in Wales first by signing up to our daily newsletter here
No date has been set for the meeting, but Cllr Gibson-Watt said it would be held "as soon as possible". He added: “Given the clear recommendations and narrative in the report and the need for strong, co-ordinated action to address those concerns, which cut across the work of many portfolio holders, I thought it essential that council members and the public hear first-hand about the actions that cabinet portfolio holders and the council’s corporate leadership team will be taking to build on the recent progress identified and address those areas where urgent progress is required.
“A full meeting of council will allow members to understand and discuss these matters thoroughly in an open and transparent way. The meeting will take place as soon as possible at a date yet to be confirmed.”
Estyn looked at everything from school budgets to improvement, bullying to security and leadership and strategic planning.. Carrying out their inspection of the authority's education service earlier this year Estyn has just published the report which shows no areas get a good report, but some worse than others.
On finances several Powys schools are currently under a statutory warning notice or notice of concern because of their financial position and some schools, particularly in the secondary sector, are carrying "very large cumulative deficits", inspectors found.
School improvement has been slow, the report said: "Leadership of school improvement at all levels has been too variable and the local authority has had a limited impact on bringing about sustainable improvements in schools."
Inspectors said the council must also "ensure that the local authority addresses urgently important school site security issues". On secondary schools Estyn inspectors found that since the last local government education services inspection in 2019, only two Powys secondary schools have not required any level of follow-up. Whilst primary school inspections have been more positive, a larger proportion of primary schools have been placed into follow-up since February 2021 than is seen nationally.
"There are a few examples where school improvement support is effective but, overall, school improvement processes and their impact are underdeveloped," inspectors said. This is because too often officers focus too heavily on school improvement paperwork at the expense of working with schools to support the most pressing improvement priorities, they added.
And while the council "has also taken difficult decisions to close schools with the aim of reducing surplus places" planning for school transformation "often lack (s) sufficient information about the intended impact on learner outcomes". Powys has "attempted to reorganise its sixth form provision" but the arrangements haven't led to improved learner outcomes, are not financially sustainable and don't give equal access to post-16 students or for all learners including through the medium of Welsh and for pupils with ALN."
Worryingly, inspectors also found that compared to other local authorities "a notably higher proportion of schools in Powys still have important site security issues that give cause for concern". Although the local authority often identifies these risks, in many cases they do not address them until Estyn also note the shortcomings.
On finances Estyn found the council knows its schools’ financial situations well and has recently improved how it helps schools with financial concerns. But "despite this work, over time, the local authority has not had enough impact in improving school budget positions".
Overall the Powys education service improvement plan "does not provide a clear strategic direction for education across the authority", the damning report concludes. Judging the county's education service to be of "significant concern, Estyn made four recommendations to improve it, these are:
The local authority will now draw up an action plan to show how it is going to address the recommendations and. Estyn will review the local authority’s progress through a series of monitoring visits.
This is what Estyn says about Powys secondary and all-age schools
"Over time, the inspection outcomes for Powys’ secondary and all-age schools have been weak. Since the last local government education service core inspection in 2019, only two secondary schools have not required any level of follow-up."
Since February 2021 Estyn has inspected three secondary schools and placed all of these into Estyn review. One of these schools had a monitoring visit in September 2024 and was judged to have made insufficient progress and placed into significant improvement while the other two are currently still in Estyn review.
Two of the secondary schools inspected before 2021 were initially placed into significant improvement. Both schools were judged to have made insufficient progress and were placed into special measures.
One of these has since been removed from special measures, but the other school remains in this category after first being placed into a statutory follow up in March 2020. Since February 2021, Estyn has also inspected three all-age schools with two of these schools placed into Estyn review and the other judged to require significant improvement.
This is what Estyn says about primary schools in Powys
Since February 2021 Estyn has inspected 39 primaries with 28 judged not to require any level of follow up and four were asked to provide a case study of effective practice. Seven primary schools were placed into Estyn review, three of which have now been removed from this level of follow-up.
Three primary schools were deemed to require significant improvement, and one was placed into special measures. The proportion of primary schools being placed into follow-up is generally greater in Powys than it is nationally.
This is what Estyn says about special schools and the pupil referral unit in Powys
Estyn has inspected one of the three special schools in Powys since February 2021 and this was judged not to require any level of follow-up. Another special school inspected in 2020 was judged to require Estyn review but was removed from this level of follow-up in 2023.
Estyn inspected the county's pupil referral unit in 2024 and found it required significant improvement.
School bullying
A section of the report also looks at bullying. On this inspectors found that although the council expects all schools and the PRU to submit information on instances of bullying "there are important shortcomings in this work". Estyn found that very few schools report any occurrences of bullying each year and officers don't undertake any meaningful analysis and evaluation of patterns of bullying over time.
In addition, they do not challenge schools when they do not submit bullying data
School improvement
Overall Estyn found "few examples where schools (in Powys) are provided with effective support and challenge that secures improvement". School improvement processes "do not focus on evaluating the most pertinent issues in Powys’s schools".
Inspectors added that leaders and officers at all levels "do not use first-hand evidence well enough to gain a clear view of the strengths and areas for improvement across Powys’s schools". As a result, the quality and impact of school improvement work are not effective enough and leaders don't challenge the information provided to them about their schools sufficiently.
On top of this "the local authority does not have a clear enough overview of the impact of professional learning and school improvement support to plan for and secure important improvements," inspectors found.
School budgets
On finances several schools in Powys are currently under a statutory warning notice or notice of concern because of their financial position. A few schools, particularly in the secondary sector, are carrying "very large cumulative deficits".
Although the local authority decided to introduce cluster business managers to support primary schools in particular in 2022 it was unable to recruit to any of the roles. This limited the authority’s plan to improve the quality of financial management of school budgets.
While just over half of primary schools in 2024-2025 have a high surplus balance, the local authority has chosen not to direct the use of funding in any of these schools And as part of its financial strategy the council required all schools to draw on their reserves which, coupled with bills rising meant overall school balances have plunged from just over £8.9m at the end of 2021-2022 to £0.9million at the end of 2023-2024 - the third lowest level across Wales.
"The authority retains a higher proportion of education funding centrally than most other local authorities without fully considering whether this provides value for money. The authority’s slow pace of change over time, in areas including ALN and Post 16 transformation, impacts negatively on its overall use of resources for education," Estyn concluded.
On a slightly more positive note the inspectorate said that Powys's director of education "is determined to make improvements to the service". He has reviewed the work of the directorate, undertaken a critical appraisal of self-evaluation, and is fostering closer working across teams". However, the report goes on to say that "objectives for the directorate are too broad, and improvement plans lack precision, clear actions and specific success criteria".
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