Will cabinet members be told at their committee meeting next week who has been given the role of heading the crisis hit education department?
At the cabinet meeting, on Tuesday, 30 July, chief executive Caroline Turner is set to give the cabinet a report titled “Head of Education."
This part of the meeting is set to be held in secret as monitoring officer for PCC, Clive Pinney, believes “That to make this information public would disclose information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.”
Mr Pinney is of the opinion this should outweigh the public interest in revealing this information.
At last week’s learning and skills scrutiny committee, (Thursday, July 19) it was revealed that three officers had been given a draft report on how the schools’ service had performed in an inspection by education watchdog Estyn.
The three are chief executive, Dr Caroline Turner and current head of
Councillors will not be allowed to know Estyn’s initial comments until Friday, 2 August, after the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election has been completed.
This is in case the information gives one of the candidates an unfair advantage.
Until polls close at
In June, it was revealed that Dr Clark will be leaving PCC at the end of August to take over as a director of an education trust at Hertfordshire in the south of England. He leaves less than a year since he started in his role.
It has been a tumultuous few months for the department.
Earlier this year they lost their director of education, Ian Budd, who left due to a management shake-up which saw eight senior management roles axed.
Education was also put under the wings of a revamped social services department.
The department also had their funding cut by £2 million, a political decision by education portfolio holder, Cllr Myfanwy Alexander to give £1 million to schools’ budgets.
Staff have publicly said that the department does not have the resources to cope with several school reorganisation projects including reorganising “post 16 education”.
Councillors are now also pressing for the number of secondary schools to be looked at due to falling school numbers.
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service