Vote of no confidence in education chief denied at council meeting

Instead, all opposition councillors could do was symbolically stand up to show their displeasure at the lack of political responsibility being taken which follows the publication of the Estyn inspection report onto Powys County Council’s education service.

The contents of the report were debated by councllors at an extraordinary council meeting on Thursday, April 10.

The report published last month highlighted that there have been a number of “poor” inspection reports for secondary and all ages schools in the county and that there are leadership weaknesses at all levels.

Estyn gave the council four recommendations to address.

Councillors were given a presentation by members of the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet to explain how the council will respond to the critical report which is the third they have received from Wales’ education watchdog since 2011.

Council leader, Liberal Democrat Cllr James Gibson-Watt said: “It’s important we apologise to the pupils, their families and the staff working in our schools for the shortcomings that have been identified.

“I take my share of responsibility for that; I speak for the rest of the cabinet and hopefully for the whole council in a shared responsibility and the report makes that abundantly clear.”

He believed the report to be a “curate’s egg” which showed the “peaks and troughs” that education in the county had gone through in recent years.

Cllr Gibson-Watt said: “Our task now is to make sure we don’t continue that cycle of decline and achievement but put in place systems that will last for many years and consistently deliver sustained improvement.”

He believed there are  “positive signs” and that the new leadership team in the department is rebuilding trust with schools “especially the secondary sector,” and there is a “sound base” to improve.

Leader of the Reform group Cllr Iain McIntosh said: “I will not accept responsibility for these failures.

“The criticism is about political leadership; it’s not the entire council it’s the cabinet.”

Powys Independents Cllr Jeremy Pugh said: “This failure has not been coming for a day or two it’s been coming for an awful long time.

“Pete (Roberts)  it’s time you showed some honour and integrity and fall on your sword.

“You are at the top and need to take responsibility.”

Cllr Pugh put forward a motion to hold vote of no confidence in Cllr Roberts.

However, council chairman Cllr Jonathan Wilkinson (Conservative) explained that this could not be allowed as the motion of no confidence needed to be submitted by 5pm the evening before the meeting.

Cllr Roberts said:  “I have considered that question of should I step down since Estyn shared their report.

“The majority of areas that are not criticised are where I have brought my influence to bear.”

He believed that under his watch the school transformation programme had been accelerated and that he had delivered on Welsh medium education as well as giving the “the appropriate challenge and support” to departmental staff.

He explained that he had spoken to teachers last week at Ysgol Maesydderwen in Ystradgynlais  who said they saw value in his “interventions”.

Cllr Roberts continued: “It is that confidence that I take if the leader wants to remove me so be it.

“But while I have the leader and the ruling group’s confidence, I will be moving forward on what is going right and working with officer’s to extend my skills and knowledge into areas of the service I have given a light touch until now.”

Powys Independents Cllr Ed Jones said: “Because we can’t vote  I will ask members to stand up if they have no confidence in the cabinet member.

All across the chamber opposition councillors stood up.

Powys Independent joint-leader Cllr Beverley Baynham said: “Whatever the discussion a motion rising from the debate should be allowed to run.”

She asked whether standing orders could be suspended to allow a motion of no confidence to be put to councillors?

Head of legal services Cliver Pinney said that this would be possible, but councillors would need to vote first to suspend standing orders.

The motion to suspend standing orders was then put to a vote with 24 councillors voting to do this but 34 voted against it.

Soon after the meeting finished.