Issue - meetings

"Would the Executive Board Member for Education provide an update on the number of surplus places in primary and secondary schools within Carmarthenshire?"

"Would the Executive Board Member for Education provide an update on the number of surplus places in primary and secondary schools across Carmarthenshire?"

Response by Councillor Glynog Davies, Executive Board Member for Education and Children:

Our role, as you know, is to ensure there are sufficient places available in our schools to meet the need and that there is a school available to meet the need of every pupil. We are also required to look at how many empty spaces there are and, again, we are required to do this on an annual basis. In January this year, there were 4,404, we need to remember the four, 4,404 empty places, 2,628 in the primary sector, 1,776 in the secondary sector. The numbers, and I have to say it, I’m not hiding anything from you, the number identified for the primary is amongst the highest in Wales. It’s lower in the secondary at 14%. Those are the figures that I provide to you this morning.

Councillor James asked the following supplementary question:

According to the figures I obtained there were an estimated 3,000 surplus places across Carmarthenshire which would have cost £1m according to Estyn’s report. Despite your predecessor trying to re-assure the Executive Board in February that action would be taken to address this issue, this authority has only saved £77k in this area. How can we, and the public, have confidence in your party to actually cut surplus places?

Response by Councillor Glynog Davies, Executive Board Member for Education and Children:-

I’m not standing here today to advocate the closure of rural schools. That’s how we would save these empty places because that’s where many of them are. But I am not prepared to do that. It’s a similar situation in Gwynedd, Ceredigion and, as you should know, Neath Port Talbot, your former authority. They all have higher figures than us and it should be of concern to them as it is of concern to us. We have taken a number of steps to reduce the numbers. By bringing two primary schools together in Burry Port, we saved 53 surplus places. We are taking steps in the right direction by creating Ysgol Bro Dinefwr, closing Tregib and Pantycelyn. We saved 313 surplus places. So, you cannot tell us that we are not striving to better the situation. We are doing our utmost.