Councillors clash over education report released on eve of damning Estyn findings

An education scrutiny committee says lessons must be learned after a glowing self-assessment of education services was published 24-hours before a damning Estyn report.

The Flintshire committee members are considering a call-in notice challenging the Cabinet’s ‘noting’ of the 2024/25 Education and Youth Self-Assessment Report (EYSER) – where it accepts the report without completely endorsing it – decided it was sound and did not need further review by full council.

Despite an impassioned case presented by petitioners in relation to both the timing of the EYSER and the fact it failed to reflect challenges facing both Flint High School and St David’s High School in Saltney, committee members voted to say they were satisfied with the explanations received by the decision-makers.

“This call-in is not about blame,” said lead petitioner Cllr David Coggins Cogan. “This is about a bad judgement call by the Cabinet.

“Cabinet was warned before their meeting that approving the self-evaluation report should not happen unless it was qualified in light of the damning Estyn report.

“It was asked not to reject it, not dismiss it, just defer the report to give it proper consideration. The Cabinet chose not to do that.

“It allowed the self-evaluation to stand unqualified.”

Cllr Coggins Cogan also took aim at the defence that the EYSER was written at a time when there were no problems facing the authority’s education services.

“Allowing this self-evaluation to stand unchallenged and to become the final position of this council is unacceptable. Safeguarding failures cannot be brushed aside by simply pointing to dates on the calendar.

Labour-led coalition

Joining Liberal Democrat’s Cllr Coggins Cogan and Cllr Andrew Parkhurst in signing the call-in were True Independents Cllr Carol Ellis and Cllr Dave Mackie, Flintshire People’s Voice Cllrs Sam Swash and Carolyn Preece and Labour Cllr Fran Lister, who has rebelled against the Labour-led coalition on this issue.

Cllr Ellis challenged the Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Mared Eastwood over why the committee had not been warned about the content of the Estyn report before they considered the self-assessment.

Then Cllr Lister spoke out.

“For a school to fail in pretty much all its core duties, a systematic failure has taken place and we, the local authority, are responsible for that system,” she said.

“What Estyn describes at Flint High School didn’t just happen overnight. It explicitly states that in recent years the senior leadership team has failed to provide Flint High School with adequate leadership.

“The argument has been made that this evaluation report covers 2024-25 and was released in 25-26 so I will repeat – failures of this magnitude don’t happen overnight.”

“Where were the robust school improvement processes claimed in this document?

“The ripple effect of these failures are deep reaching and they’ll be long lasting. It’s the Flint community that pays that price.

“I speak for those families who don’t get the forum to voice their disappointment. They don’t get to voice their hurt.

“They don’t get to voice their worries about whether sending their child to school has actually done more harm than good. We’re speaking up for children who are vulnerable and they’re voiceless.

“To have this self-assessment report ratified by Cabinet the day after the release of the Estyn report is both dismissive of the Flint community and deeply disrespectful.

“I wonder how many of the Cabinet read these reports side by side, because how can you possibly agree one with the presence of the other?”

Special measures

Cllr Coggins Cogan also pointed to the fact that the EYSER states 96% of Flintshire schools are in Estyn’s ‘no statutory follow-up category – but the report did not note the fact that almost a fifth of the county’s secondary schools are in special measures, affecting around 1,000 pupils.

But Cllr Eastwood defended the process, stating that the date for the overdue self-assessment report was set by the authority’s Democratic Services in December, before Estyn had revealed when it would publish its report.

She added that the Estyn report was strictly embargoed, preventing her from alerting the committee when they considered the self-assessment document.

“The report is a high level review of the work undertaken by the Education and Youth Portfolio during 24-25, based on reports that had gone to scrutiny and had in itself been scrutinised appropriately by the Education, Youth and Culture Oversight and Scrutiny Committee,” she said.

“At the date of that meeting, the report by Estyn had not been published. It was still confidential. We would not be in a position to discuss that report during the meeting on the 14th of January.”

Cllr Eastwood added that an investigation into the situation at Flint High School was underway and the self assessment should not prejudge it.

“The outcome of the full review and investigation into what has and has not happened in relation to Flint High School is yet to be finalised.

“It would be irresponsibly pre-emptive to reflect on what may or may not have happened at Flint High School when considering the self-evaluation report for 24-25. Those findings will be included in the 2025/26 report next year.”

Lessons to learn

Cllr David Evans suggested that there were lessons to learn from the debacle, but disagreed with sending the self-assessment report to full council for debate.

“i feel I’d be reassured now if the Cabinet would solidly say that in this situation, this misreading of the room, it would give assurances that that scenario would not happen again,” he said.

“They knew, we all knew, this Estyn report was coming and yet we held this meeting beforehand where it would have been more practical to hold it afterwards and been a bit more transparent.

“Scrutiny would have been a little bit more open to coming up with further recommendations. It may not have changed the self-assessment report but it might.

“If the cabinet gave us those assurances around lessons learned, and that this wouldn’t happen again, I’d accept that.”

The petitioners’ move to send the self-assessment report to full council for consideration was defeated, with members accepting the explanation given by the Cabinet Member for Education and allowing the Cabinet decision to stand.