£2.7m deficit prompts plans to split Welsh-medium secondary school

Nicholas Thomas, Local Democracy Reporter

A Welsh-medium secondary school could be split into two separate institutions in a bid to solve ongoing money problems.

Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni needs to tackle a “growing budget deficit” which is forecast to “increase year on year” if no action is taken.

The school has more than 1,800 pupils across its two sites – in Fleur de Lis and Caerphilly town – and has a “well-established reputation for delivering high-quality education”.

But a Caerphilly County Borough Council report warns the current split-site arrangements pose various “operational and organisational challenges”, including “duplication” of staffing arrangements.

At a recent scrutiny committee meeting, the council’s chief education officer said the school had to employ extra staff, to make up for timetabled hours lost to employees travelling the seven miles between the two sites.

The school was £2.7 million in the red at the end of the last financial year, and “without intervention” its deficit could continue to grow by around £1 million a year.

The council believes the school operating over the two sites is “adding a financial pressure linked to time for staff movement that is not sustainable”.

Dividing Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni would give each new school its own budget and “would result in financially sustainable operating models”.

The impacts on pupils and staff would be “minimal”, the council predicts, with young people attending the same school sites, curriculum and transport arrangements as they do currently.

“As a result, the day-to-day experience of pupils would remain largely the same, with no significant changes to current educational arrangements,” the council said in its report.

Each school would also have its own leadership team, allowing them to “focus on the specific needs, priorities and aspirations of the communities they serve”.

It would also increase the county borough’s Welsh-medium secondary school capacity, and “provide greater resilience” for Welsh-language education.

But even if the school split goes ahead, the council warns it will need to come up with a separate strategy to address the “significant deficit accumulated historically”, which it estimates “cannot be recovered within a five-year period”.

The council’s education committee is expected to discuss the plan at a meeting on Tuesday September 8, ahead of a consultation period with the school community.

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