Council ordered to improve education services after inspectors raise ‘significant concern’

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

A Welsh council’s education services will be monitored by inspectors every term after an inspection identified areas of “significant concern”.

Flintshire County Council has also been ordered to draw up an action plan addressing five recommendations following the Estyn inspection in July.

The findings come after 10 of Flintshire’s 11 secondary schools were inspected over the past four years, with six requiring some form of follow-up action. Two were placed in Special Measures, two required Significant Improvement and two required Estyn Reviews.

Estyn said: “Since 2022, the majority of secondary schools inspected have required follow-up activity.

“In some cases, weaknesses in school leadership and governance have contributed significantly to the difficulties experienced by these schools. The authority’s support and challenge have not always brought about sufficiently rapid or sustained improvement.

“Improvement planning does not always identify precise enough outcomes, timescales or measures of success. These weaknesses limit the authority’s ability to improve provision and outcomes consistently for children and young people.

“The authority promotes a positive safeguarding culture and recent changes to safeguarding leadership are improving communication and partnership working. However, strategic quality assurance arrangements are not robust enough.”

Inspectors also found positives within the service, including changes made in recent years such as establishing the council’s own school improvement service and expanding specialist provision.

They said: “The authority has made purposeful changes to strengthen its work in recent years, including establishing its own school improvement service, expanding specialist provision and developing wider approaches to inclusion and belonging. These developments are beginning to improve aspects of provision and support.”

Estyn also praised the council’s “committed senior officers”, saying they had maintained a strong focus on supporting schools and vulnerable learners during a period of considerable financial and organisational pressure.

Scrutiny

The report also examined the way councillors scrutinise the authority’s education services.

It said: “A small number of elected members have politicised aspects of scrutiny and, at times, focused too much on individuals rather than issues.

“This has weakened the tone and effectiveness of scrutiny, placed considerable pressure on officers, affected their well-being and absorbed leadership capacity. As a result, scrutiny does not focus sharply enough on strategic risk, learner outcomes and the long-term improvement of education services.”

Despite recently publicised challenges facing the authority over its management of pupils with additional learning needs (ALN) in mainstream schools, ALN was not an area of focus for the inspection.

The council’s support for neurodiverse pupils was, however, considered.

Inspectors said: “Despite significant increases in demand, schools and settings value the responsiveness and practical support provided by individual [health] services.

“However, schools and settings frequently report uncertainty about available health support and continue to experience delays that affect timely intervention.

“While schools and settings gather valuable feedback from children, young people and their families through individual case work, arrangements for collecting, analysing and using feedback strategically are not sufficiently systematic across the authority.

“As a result, leaders cannot consistently demonstrate how this feedback informs strategic planning, service design and improvement across the wider system.”

Finances

Estyn also examined the management of education finances at a time when the authority is facing what inspectors described as “significant financial pressure”.

The entire school estate fell into deficit for the first time last year.

Inspectors said: “Intervention is often triggered once schools are already in deficit, rather than when reserves are weakening. This limits the authority’s ability to act preventatively.

“The authority does not use benchmarking, comparative financial intelligence or system-wide learning well enough to inform strategic decisions about school budgets.

“As a result, leaders do not always identify patterns of financial risk early enough or use intelligence from individual schools to strengthen planning across the system.”

Inspectors gave positive feedback about Flintshire’s School Improvement Service, a team established a year ago which has begun to make inroads into some of the issues facing the authority.

Estyn also examined a range of schemes run by the authority to help families experiencing poverty access education.

It found the council’s quality assurance and evaluation arrangements were underdeveloped, making it difficult to assess the real-world need for and impact of the schemes.

The authority’s self-evaluation process was also criticised for focusing more on activity carried out than on the impact of that work.

Recommendations

Estyn made five recommendations following the inspection.

The council has been told to address safeguarding leadership and evaluation; strengthen strategic planning around school deficits and financial sustainability; improve the effectiveness of scrutiny; strengthen strategic leadership, self-evaluation and improvement planning; and improve collaborative working across portfolio and service areas.

Flintshire County Council said it accepted the findings and was working on its response.

Chief executive Neal Cockerton said: “Both reports acknowledge the enthusiastic and positive work of the teams within the Education and Youth Service.

“The Estyn report acknowledges the pressurised environment the service is working in and the steps being taken to continue to deliver high quality education services to our schools.

“The five recommendations set out in the report have already started to be built upon and the areas strengthened.

“I, and officers in the service, take seriously the matters raised in the report and are fully committed to taking action to address them as we work closely with Estyn.

“Staff within both services have and continue to work incredibly hard and this has been noted within both reports. I take this opportunity to thank them for the work they continue to carry out with our children and young people.”

Flintshire County Council leader Cllr Dave Hughes added: “While the report identifies areas where we need to improve, it also recognises the many strengths within the service which give us a solid foundation on which to build.

“We are committed to learning from these findings and driving forward the changes needed.”

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