Labour councillor joins opposition leaders in criticism of education report

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

A Labour councillor has joined opposition councillors in criticising Flintshire’s Cabinet for signing off a ‘glowing’ education self-assessment report within days of a damning Estyn report into Flint High School.

During Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, the Labour-led coalition voted to approve the Education and Youth Self-Assessment Report (EYSER), which highlighted that the authority ‘knows its settings and schools very well’ and it has ‘quality information about its schools’.

Overall, the assessment report presented a positive picture of Flintshire’s education services with no aspects of education service provision rated red in the authority’s traffic light system.

It offered no mention of problems at Flint High School, despite Estyn just last week placing it into special measures after ruling the senior leadership team had ‘failed to provide Flint High School with adequate leadership’.

The inspectors added that the school did not provide an acceptable standard of education and pupil safety was a serious concern.

At the Cabinet meeting the Deputy Leader of the council Cllr Richard Jones said: “Many people will question the purpose and relevance of this report given the recent challenges in some schools across Flintshire, or a school in Flintshire.”

Chief Officer for Education and Youth, Claire Homard, responded: “The purpose of the report is to set out to demonstrate against all of the key questions Estyn would be researching about how effective the council’s education and youth services are.”

Council Leader Cllr Dave Hughes then stated to Cabinet that the report ‘covered the period to July 2025.’

Prior to the Cabinet meeting opposition council leaders from the Liberal Democrats, Flintshire People’s Voice and True Independents – plus Labour councillor Fran Lister – wrote to Cabinet Members asking them to defer the report or add some comments relating to the Estyn findings at Flint High.

After Cabinet approved the self-assessment with little debate, Labour Cllr Fran Lister publicly joined opposition leaders in criticising what she called their ‘lack of honest scrutiny’.

‘Not snapshots’

“After writing to the Labour-led Cabinet, I asked them to consider whether the assurance provided in the EYSER – particularly the description of self-evaluation and school improvement arrangements as ‘rigorous’- remains accurate without further clarification,” she said.

“Estyn inspections are not snapshots. They are explicitly backward-looking and examine leadership, self-evaluation, improvement planning, safeguarding culture and operational oversight over time.

“The weaknesses identified at Flint High School therefore relate to arrangements that were in place during the period covered by this self-evaluation and cannot be dismissed as falling outside its scope. These are also areas for which the local authority has clear responsibilities.

“The lack of honest scrutiny at Cabinet raises serious accountability questions. Cabinet could have chosen to defer the item to a future meeting after formally seeking the views of the Education, Youth and Culture Overview and Scrutiny Committee, or to approve the report only once it had been updated to reflect the implications of the Estyn findings for the council’s assurance, oversight and self-evaluation role.

“Either option would have demonstrated accountability and protected the integrity of the council’s governance processes. Instead, the Cabinet has failed to listen to opposition leaders or even its own backbench councillors.”

Cllr Andrew Parkhurst, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrat Group, said: “People will rightly ask whether the ‘special’ scrutiny meeting held one day before the Estyn report was published was timed to get a favourable vote on this ‘glowing’ assessment through before a devastating inspection report landed. That question has not been answered.

“Opposition leaders made a reasonable and responsible request for a short deferral or an extra report. The Labour-led coalition Cabinet chose instead to press ahead as if nothing had happened.”

Fellow Liberal Democrat Cllr David Coggins Cogan added: “This self-evaluation report states that ‘the council knows its settings and schools very well’ and that it ‘has quality information about its schools’.

“Yet Estyn has just exposed serious failures in leadership, safeguarding, and self-evaluation at Flint High School. They cannot both be true: either the council does not know its schools and should be in special measures itself, or it does know its schools and did nothing to help Flint High School.

“The Cabinet decision to approve the self-evaluation is a complete whitewash. A report that praises the authority’s own oversight has been approved without a single word of criticism, even as inspectors identify profound and systemic problems in one of our secondary schools.

“Hiding behind the claim that this report only covers up to July 2025 is an incredibly weak defence.

“Safeguarding failures do not suddenly appear overnight. They develop over time and should have been identified and challenged long before inspectors arrived. This self-evaluation report must be revisited urgently by council.”