Private Corporation in Takeover-bid for Carmarthenshire County Council

Cymdeithas yr Iaith has made a last-minute appeal over the weekend to Carmarthenshire councillors not to allow the County Council to be run like a privale corporation but to protect it’s integrity as a democratic people’s forum. It is rumoured that the leaders and officials of the council intend even to prevent any vote taking place next Wednesday on the controversial Education Modernisation Strategy which will lead to the closure of dozens of Welsh-medium village schools in the county.

The issue is likely to be discussed in the agenda merely as part of a report of the Executive Board rather than as a point in it’s own right. Council leaders and officials could merely report on what they are doing, accept questions but allow no vote. The officials will argue that they are merely implementing existing policy in the new strategy in the the Schools Organisation Plan (passed by the Council in 2001) stated that “there would inevitably be fewer schools”.

In an open letter to all councillors, Cymdeithas Education Spokesperson Ffred Ffransis said that “the officials appeared to be using every trick to stifle democratic debate and push through their managerial strategy like a ruthless private corporation.”

He stated, “Back in 2001, councillors would have interpreted a phrase such as “inevitably be fewer schools” as meaning that the odd school here and there would be closed if it became unviable. You cannot allow officials to use this now as a mandate for the wholesale closure of almost all our Welsh-medium village schools without allowing you as councillors and governors and local communities in general to discuss such a drastic policy in a democratic way. Your responsibility on Wednesday is to stop the County Council being turned into a Private Corporation run by managers and insist that it maintains it’s integrity as a democratic forum which engages people. Officers have drawn up behind closed doors their detailed strategy which impacts on every school and community without discussing the matter with governors nor local communities. In the typical P.R. style of private companies used to getting their own way, they have twice publicly launched their strategy before you have even begun to discuss it as councillors. Now it appears that they intend to merely report what they are intending to do to councillors without allowing a vote in the jumped-up style of company directors trying to humour their shareholders. Like every capitalist corporation, they understand well the value of buildings and real estate but nothing about the value of community and empowering people and pupils. Both you and the people of the county deserve better.

“Not only will the bureaucratic policy of centralising convenience-schools destroy dozens of our Welsh-speaking communities by turning them into old-people’s villages. Not only is there no educational basis for such vandalism as these schools are succeeding educationally. Not only does the Strategy break the Assembly guidelines by not exploring all alternatives to closures – in fact it offers the same solution of closures and centralising schools in every case of change. Not only is all this true, but in addition we now have the whole issue of whether the Council should be run as a democratic forum with real power or as a private corporation.

“You have 2 choices on Wedbesday. You can meekly accept what the officers are doing in which case our schools and communities will be destroyed and there will be widespread disillusion among our people. Who is going to bother voting in local elections if even councillors – let alone ordinary people – have no power. OR you could choose a better way – which is working with local communities instead of trampling on them. Instead of rubber-stamping the strategy, you could demand a 6-month period of genuine consultation with schools and communities throughout the county about the basic principlea of the strategy and then reach your decision. The officials will try to pull wool over our eyes by saying that there will of course be public consultation before any school is closed. But they are talking merely about fulfilling their statutory responsibility to consult about the details of how to implement their negative strategy in given areas one at a time. There will be no county-wide debate about the whole underlying principles. Unless you insist upon it. Your responsibility is great, and we urge you to consider it carefully.”

For further info, please contact Ffred Ffransis on 07798 713801.