Council rejects claims teacher redundancies are due to ‘cuts’

Alec Doyle, Local democracy reporter.

A north Wales council has rejected claims that schools are being forced to make teachers redundant as a result of budget reductions.

Wrexham Council’s leader, Cllr Mark Pritchard, also declined to rule out the possibility of school closures in the future if falling birth rates continue to impact pupil numbers.

The council’s Lifelong Learning and Scrutiny Committee heard last week that the redundancy bill for teachers across Wrexham this year would be around £900,000 – roughly 60 teachers or teaching assistants – across the borough’s 70 schools. 

But the Leader of Wrexham Council Cllr Mark Pritchard has refuted suggestions that this is due to funding cuts from the authority. 

He says that budgets are tightening due to pupil numbers falling, which means schools receive less money in the funding formula. 

“The council has gone a long way to protect the budget for education,” he said. “Schools are funded as a result of the number of pupils on the roll. The number on the roll is reducing and therefore we have to work with headmasters and headmistresses to make sure they cut their cloth accordingly.” 

Cllr Phil Wynn, Lead Member for Education, explained the challenge facing schools. 

“Each school manages its own budget and makes its own staffing decisions,” he said. “As a council, we support schools to the best of our ability and recognise that councillors set the overall budgets for each department, including schools. 

“However, we do not get involved in teacher recruitment or redundancy decisions; that responsibility lies with school heads and governing bodies. 

“Wrexham – like every council – is seeing a drop in birth rates since the pandemic. This means fewer children are entering our schools, which in turn contributes to the need for fewer school staff. I accept that the cut to school budgets in 2024/25 has added to the challenges schools are facing. Over time, we are quietly working to address this.” 

Savings

Wrexham Council is asking every department except for education to find additional savings this next year, while it will invest an additional 5.8% in schools. 

But Cllr Pritchard said that money will not be used to retain teachers where pupil numbers do not justify them. 

“We’ve given schools an above-inflation increase in funding,” he said. “Individual schools and governing bodies have jurisdiction if the pupil numbers drop off.  

“Unfortunately, because of the way the funding goes through the Welsh Government, the pupil numbers affect money and if the pupils drop off then the money drops off. 

“Fewer children in a school means you have less money to go towards that school as a result. It’s linked to per-head allocation. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s not a cut; it’s a general trend of fewer children being in school because the birth rate is low.  

“It is a difficult situation for schools. Lots of them do a really good job – and then there’s some schools who can’t manage their budgets properly and they have to have intervention.  

“This is not just in Wrexham, all across Wales; school budgets are really stretched. I think 15 out of 22 authorities are in a negative school budget position, which is fairly unique; I’ve never come across that before. 

“The council gets blamed for lots of things, but you can’t blame this council for the reduction in pupil numbers in schools. That’s not our making. We are working tirelessly to support and fund schools as much as we can.” 

“It saddens me really because none of us want to see any redundancies, but how can you keep teachers in schools if there’s no need for them? You just can’t, can you?” 

School closures

Asked if the authority could see the closure of some schools, Cllr Pritchard refused to rule it out. 

“There has to be an honest conversation, doesn’t there?” he said. “We have to look at schools. If there’s no need or requirement for a school, there’s no need or requirement for it. That’s just the way it is.  

“This is life. This is what we face, and we have to manage it. I remember we shut a school in Pontfadog, and we went through the process. It was the best thing to do. Things have moved on from that, and everything is working well.  

“It is a dilemma for every authority across Wales – have we got too many schools? We’ve got to do a piece of work on that.”