Powys County Council’s Independent/Conservative Cabinet is in danger of ‘sleep-walking in to a schools funding crisis’ unless urgent action is taken, according to the Welsh Liberal Democrat Group on the Council.

Currently 15 of Powys’s schools, including some secondary ones, are running budget deficits that have not been approved by the Council and the deficit position is forecast to worsen over the next few years. The Council’s Cabinet considered the issue at its meeting this week (Tue 30th Jan).

Commenting on the situation, Cllr James Gibson-Watt, Leader of the Council’s Welsh Lib Dem Group, said:

“This issue threatens the viability of the county’s whole schools system and the education of a generation of our young people. Thus far the Cabinet shows little sign of getting a grip on the issue, which requires urgent action and intervention to put the schools system on a sustainable footing. This will have to include a significant increase in schools funding in the 2018/19 budget, in return for which reforms must be urgently implemented.”

“In particular the Cabinet has to face up to the fact that we have been running an unsustainable and failing post-16 provision in the county for many years. Reform of the sector is long-overdue. Yet the report that went to Cabinet this week exposed a timid approach, which does not even mention the need for the Council to work with all post-16 providers, not just the schools, to create a better overall system. The Cabinet’s approach does not inspire confidence.”

“This Cabinet is sleep-walking in to a schools funding crisis, despite many warnings from finance officers about the situation, and it needs to get its act together quickly.”