Y Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg - Y Bumed Senedd

Children, Young People and Education Committee - Fifth Senedd

20/03/2019

Aelodau'r Pwyllgor a oedd yn bresennol

Committee Members in Attendance

Dawn Bowden
Hefin David
Janet Finch-Saunders
Lynne Neagle Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor
Committee Chair
Sian Gwenllian
Suzy Davies

Y rhai eraill a oedd yn bresennol

Others in Attendance

Anthony Hunt Arweinydd Gyngor Bwrdeisdref Sirol Torfaen a Llefarydd Cymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru dros Gyllid ac Adnoddau
Leader of Torfaen County Borough Council and Welsh Local Government Association Spokesperson for Finance and Resources
Arwyn Thomas Rheolwr Gyfarwyddwr, GwE
Managing Director, GwE
Debbie Harteveld Rheolwr Gyfarwyddwr, Gwasanaeth Cyflawni Addysg i Dde Ddwyrain Cymru
Managing Director, Education Achievement Service for South East Wales
Dilwyn Williams Prif Weithredwr, Cyngor Gwynedd, ac Aelod o'r Is-grŵp Dosbarthu
Chief Executive, Gwynedd Council, and Member of Distribution Sub-group
Dr Chris Llewelyn Prif Weithredwr, Cymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru
Chief Executive, Welsh Local Government Association
Esther Thomas Rheolwr Gyfarwyddwr Cynorthwyol Dros Dro, Consortiwm Canolbarth y De
Temporary Assistant Managing Director, Central South Consortium
Geraint Rees Rheolwr Gyfarwyddwr, Ein Rhanbarth ar Waith
Managing Director, Education through Regional Working
Jon Rae Cyfarwyddwr Adnoddau, Cymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru
Director of Resources, Welsh Local Government Association
Paula Ham Arweinydd Strategol Cyllid, Cymdeithas Cyfarwyddwyr Addysg Cymru, a Chyfarwyddwr Addysg, Cyngor Bro Morgannwg
Finance Strategic Lead, Association of Directors of Education in Wales, and Director of Education, Vale of Glamorgan Council

Swyddogion y Senedd a oedd yn bresennol

Senedd Officials in Attendance

Gareth Rogers Ail Glerc
Second Clerk
Michael Dauncey Ymchwilydd
Researcher
Sarah Bartlett Dirprwy Glerc
Deputy Clerk

Cofnodir y trafodion yn yr iaith y llefarwyd hwy ynddi yn y pwyllgor. Yn ogystal, cynhwysir trawsgrifiad o’r cyfieithu ar y pryd. Lle mae cyfranwyr wedi darparu cywiriadau i’w tystiolaeth, nodir y rheini yn y trawsgrifiad.

The proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the transcript.

Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:30.

The meeting began at 09:30.

1. Cyflwyniad, Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan Buddiannau
1. Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of Interest

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and there is no substitute. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you.

2. Ymchwiliad i Gyllido Ysgolion: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth
2. Inquiry into School Funding: Evidence Session

Item 2, then, is our evidence session on our inquiry into school funding. I'm very pleased to welcome the witnesses this morning: Chris Llewelyn, chief executive of the Welsh Local Government Association; Jon Rae, director of resources at WLGA; Dilwyn Williams, who is chief executive of Gwynedd Council and member of the distribution sub-group; Anthony Hunt, who is leader of Torfaen council and the WLGA spokesperson for finance and resources; and Paula Ham, who is the strategic lead for the Association of Directors of Education in Wales and is the finance and director of education at Vale of Glamorgan Council. Thank you, all, for your attendance this morning. We're very pleased to have you here and looking forward to hearing what you've got to say.

We'll go straight into questions, if that's okay, and if I can just start by asking a general question about what you think the current scale of the pressure on school budgets is and how this position compares with previous years, and what you feel the outlook for the future is?

Okay, if I can kick off, then, we estimate the pressure for 2019-20 at £109 million and that's rising to about £319 million by 2022-23. That represents a 4.8 per cent pressure on the budget for next year. A large proportion of that—nearly 90 per cent—is workforce costs, pay and pensions, the rest being largely demographic due to a rising school-age population. So, the pressure is increasing and is considerable.

There's plenty of evidence now that sets out the scale of reductions that the local government education sector has faced. The work by Wales fiscal analysis, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Wales Public Services 2025—you'll see that the reduction since 2009-10 is around about 8 per cent in real terms; around about 5 per cent if you're looking at it on a per-pupil basis. So, whilst education has been protected in some respects—the cuts haven't been as bad as they have been in other services: libraries, culture, recreation, double figures, up to 40, 50 per cent—there's still been a reduction in the service spend.

So, in light of what you've just said about the comparison with the cuts in other services, is there anything you want to add in terms of how difficult you're finding it to actually protect resources for schools?

In the current context of declining resources in real terms, it's incredibly difficult. Schools are our largest single budget area, and whilst we're doing our best to try and protect school spending—for example, in my own authority, we put an extra £0.75 million into schools this year—in a situation where we've got declining resources, it's very difficult. Social care, as well, is another big area of spending, and you'll all know the pressures in that area as well, which are huge and growing. If you add schools and social care together, that's getting on for 70 per cent of our spend as an authority. So, when the quantum of your money as a whole is going down, even if you work very hard to relatively protect spending on schools, it's difficult and schools are going to face challenges to put budgets together.

Just following on from that, on the ground, of course, schools have been given their budgets for next year and are finding it very difficult to balance their budgets. And, certainly, in my local authority there are going to be a number of schools with unlicensed deficits in the future, and that's something that we haven't come across before. So, they're not able to even identify feasible options to put together a budget recovery plan.

Can I just very quickly come back in? The reason we prioritise school spending is that I personally believe it's the key preventative service. When you look at the funding of schools, as opposed to maybe social care or health spending, I really believe school spending, and early years spending in particular, is a key preventative service that has a massive impact on everything else going forward. So that's why we want to work to protect it and that's why it is so important. 

09:35

Okay, thank you. Obviously, we've got sizeable reforms going on in Wales in terms of education. How much of a risk, then, do you think the financial position is to the delivery of not just the reforms but delivering a good education, really, to our children and young people?

Can I come in on that? I think that the support for the reforms being introduced is clear. So, in terms of the new curriculum, additional learning needs reforms, on the part of local government, but more generally within the education system, there is clear support for those reforms. In some instances, it's difficult to quantify the cost implications. There is considerable debate around ALN at the moment in terms of the costs. But it is clear that, in the current funding context, implementing these reforms is going to be very difficult. The reality is, over the last 10 years or so, while local authority budgets have been cut, it has been a period of constant reform. The education policy context is very dynamic and has been over quite a long period of time, and the pace of reform and change is accelerating at the moment. So, it will be a significant challenge. 

Could I just come in on that? There is great support that I've seen, both in authorities and practitioners I speak to in schools for the new reforms—both for the curriculum reforms and the ALN reforms—but it's a bit like trying to run a marathon with a lead weight tied around your neck. The funding is always the elephant in the room. So, there is that enthusiasm to make these reforms work, to invest in them, but obviously it's difficult in the context of the current funding situation. 

There is a translation service, is there?

Dwi'n meddwl—. Mae yna un pwynt arall i'w ychwanegu at hyn, sef, ar lefel ymarferol, wrth drio rhedeg awdurdod, yn hanesyddol, fel dŷn ni wedi ei ddweud, dŷn ni wedi bod yn trio gwarchod addysg a gofal cymdeithasol, y ddau efo'i gilydd. A phwy sydd wedi bod yn talu'r pris am hynna ydy'r gwasanaethau eraill. Dwi yn meddwl bellach dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd rhyw wal rŵan lle mae'r gallu i sugno o'r gwasanaethau eraill i warchod y ddau wasanaeth yma yn dechrau dod i derfyn—wel, mewn rhai llefydd, mae wedi dod i derfyn, buaswn i'n dadlau. Ac felly, wrth fynd ymlaen, dydy'r ateb yna ddim gennym ni a beth dŷn ni'n dechrau ei weld yng Nghymru, wrth gwrs, yn gyffredinol—mae cyfraddau'r dreth cyngor wedi codi eleni yn fwy nag y maen nhw wedi eu gwneud mewn blynyddoedd o'r blaen.

A dwi'n meddwl beth ydy hwnna ydy symptom o awdurdodau'n stryglo i drio rhoi'r adnoddau pwysig i addysg ac i faes gofal gan wybod fedran nhw ddim tynnu o lefydd eraill. Achos mae llefydd eraill hefyd—. Mae gennych chi'r agenda iechyd—wel, mae hamdden yn y pethau eraill ac mae hwnna llawn mor bwysig, ac mae aelodau, dwi'n meddwl, ar lawr gwlad—. Yr hyn dwi'n ei weld o leiaf fel prif weithredwr ydy'r anallu yma bellach i ddweud, 'Wel, mae hwnna'n bwysicach na hwnna, so gwnawn ni gadw hwnna a gwnawn ni dorri hwnna.' Ond rŵan dŷn ni wedi cyrraedd y sefyllfa, dwi'n meddwl, lle mae popeth llawn mor bwysig, bron, ac felly bydd yr agenda i drio gwarchod addysg ac i roi'r adnoddau dyledus iddo fo yn anoddach wrth inni symud ymlaen os nad oes yna rhywbeth yn newid. 

I think—. There is one other point to be added to this. At a practical level, in trying to run an authority, historically, as we've heard, we've been trying to safeguard social care and education. And who has paid the price for that? Well, it's the other services. I do think now that we've reached a wall where the ability to take from other services to ring-fence funding for these two services has now reached its pinnacle and, in moving forward, we don't have that solution available to us anymore. And what we're starting to see in Wales is that council tax rates in Wales have risen more than they have done in previous years.

I think that is symptomatic of local authorities struggling to give the appropriate resources to both care and education in the knowledge that they can't draw from elsewhere. Because those other areas are—. You have the health agenda—well, leisure is included there and that's just as important. What I see as chief executive is this inability now to say, 'Well, that's more important than that, so we will safeguard that and we will make cuts elsewhere.' But we've now reached a position where everything is of equal importance and therefore the agenda to safeguard education and to give proper resources to it will become more difficult as we move forward, unless something changes. 

Chair, can I just come in on that point? Because I think it's a very important point about some of the priorities that local authorities are having to address with the funding crisis—let's be clear what it is. Now, the only way that you're going to get additional funding is from Welsh Government, but Welsh Government isn't getting any more money. So, what would your message to Welsh Government be in terms of the way in which it needs to look at its priorities around funding? Because there ain't any more money in the Welsh Government pot. It's got to come from there, so what would you be saying to Welsh Government that they should be looking at in terms of their priorities?

Mae'r cwestiwn o flaenoriaethu yn fater gwleidyddol, onid ydy? Dyw e ddim yn fater i mi fel swyddog i ddweud beth ddylai blaenoriaethau Llywodraeth Cymru fod. Dwi'n meddwl weithiau fod yna gwestiwn i'w ofyn: a ydyn ni'n gwybod beth ydy effaith beth sy'n digwydd go iawn ar lawr gwlad? Dwi yn herio hynny weithiau. Mae aelodau lleol—gyda phob parch i Anthony a'i gyd-aelodau—yn stryglo i drio cadw'r blaidd o'r drws. Oes yna—? Herio ydw i, gofyn cwestiwn ydw i—oes yna sylweddoliad yng Nghaerdydd o beth sy'n digwydd ar lawr gwlad ar draws y wlad? Dwi ddim yn gwybod—jest gofyn y cwestiwn ydw i. Achos mae hyd yn oed pethau sylfaenol fel torri gwair a chadw strydoedd yn lân, mae o'n effeithio ar lesiant pobl—ar y well-being agenda, i ryw raddau, os ydych chi'n gweld llefydd yn flêr. Ond wedi dweud hynna, wrth gwrs mae rhywun yn dallt—ia, iechyd ydy blaenoriaeth pawb yng Nghymru. Petasech chi'n gofyn—fe wnaethom ni arolwg yn ddiweddar—'Beth sydd bwysicaf i chi?' Rhif 1 ar y rhestr: iechyd.

The question of prioritisation is a political issue. It's not for me as an officer in local government to say what the priorities of Welsh Government should be. I think on occasion that there are questions to be asked as to whether we know what the impact of what is happening on the ground is. I would challenge that. Local members—with all due respect to Anthony and to his fellow members—are struggling to keep the wolf from the door. Is there—? Now, I'm challenging here, I'm asking a question—is there a realisation in Cardiff of what's happening on the ground across the country? I'm just posing that question. Because even fundamental things like lawn mowing and keeping the streets clean, affect people's well-being, and it affects the well-being agenda, if your surroundings are untidy. But having said that, of course one understands that, yes, health is everyone's priority in Wales. We carried out a survey recently, and asked, 'What's most important to you?' No. 1 on the list was health.

09:40

Yes, I totally understand that. I think we'll probably come back to this, Chair, in further questions. But in every inquiry that we do, everybody's asking for more money. And really, what I'm saying is: if everybody wants more money, where is it going to come from? So, I think that is a conversation that we do need to have at some point— whether we'll get to that through some of the questions.

Many of us here have rigorously challenged Welsh Government on how moneys are allocated, and the amount of money you get, and we are constantly told that the local authority leaders themselves, and chief execs, have actually approved the budget that they're going to be getting for this year. And so we keep being pushed back by—

We are going into the settlement in the next section, so if we can leave that, and just—

And just finally from me, then, the WLGA was very critical, really, of the settlement when the draft budget was published. Was the extra money that was announced by Welsh Government for teachers' pay sufficient and do you feel that the Minister's announcement last week on teachers' pensions will allay your concerns in that area?

Shall I take that one? The £7.5 million extra for school pay was very welcome. It didn't cover the whole bill, but it was welcome help for us. The announcement last week on pensions is a big help, because that will really—in my own authority, that's almost £2 million of cuts that we won't now have to take out. So, that was appreciated.

Can I just very quickly come back to Dawn's point: what you can do to help in many respects is to voice the importance that you place on education. And I say this in social care as well. Authorities are left with a very difficult situation. In social care, for example, 90 per cent of people don't use that service, so authorities are dragged towards the services that the majority of people do use, or that everyone uses—the very visible services—and away from areas like education and social care, which not everyone uses. So, I think the more that we can do to together articulate the importance of those services, and to articulate that, for example, we haven't put up council tax because of a whim, or because of some inefficiency in our system—we've put it up in Torfaen because the alternative was giving schools a cash freeze, which would have resulted in tens of teaching assistants, for example, being made redundant. And that's the political reality of the situation we face. So, the more we can do to articulate that together, and the importance of education as a preventative service, the better.

Dŷn ni'n deall natur yr argyfwng. Sut fyddech chi'n crisialu effaith hynna ar blant ac ar addysg y plant?

We understand the nature of the emergency. But how would you crystalise the effect of that on children and on the children's education?

Shall I get that? The effect is immense. For example, if schools have to cut their budgets—increasingly now they're to the bones in terms of non-staffing spend, so they're having to look for staffing. And if you take teaching assistants away from classrooms, it's the kids who need that support most that suffer. And so that's one reason I was very keen to provide as much support to schools as we could in Torfaen, because I knew that the alternative was a situation where support for the children that needed it most was withdrawn, because schools are facing up to a very challenging situation in setting balanced budgets.

Yes. Just to add to Anthony's points, one of the difficulties with education and interventions is that it's often very difficult to establish cause and effect, between spending and actual outcomes. And in some ways, spending in education is a blunt instrument. But what we do know is that, if some funding is cut, then it does have an impact on outcomes. The point I wanted to make was, on the earlier point in relation to the pensions and the pay increase, I think in terms of the announcement in relation to the increased employer contributions to pensions, it's a good example of the Welsh Government and local government working very effectively together—in that instance, lobbying the UK Government. And then, in relation to the £7.5 million grant for the teachers' pay award, the thing to bear in mind is that it was very useful for this year, but it is a specific grant and it's a recurring cost, so it needs to go into the settlement. Otherwise, we will be in the same problem again next year.

09:45

In relation to the grant for teachers' pay, I think that what we need to recognise is that many of the staff working in schools are non-teaching staff, so there's a pressure for school budgets in terms of the pay award for those staff and, of course, general inflation. So, in real terms, even after the receipt of that grant funding, schools have had a significant cut to their budgets.

I was just going to support Anthony's original response there, in terms of there still being a funding shortfall, I suppose, in education. He's absolutely right. The additional money for pensions has been overwhelmingly welcomed, I think, by local government. Teachers' pay, I think, is partially funded, and if you look at the academic year, of the pressure versus the funding, it's potentially 80 per cent funded. Things that aren't funded are pay increases for teaching assistants and everyone else who works in the education sector in local government. The net pay bill for all those teaching assistants and other officers is about £600 million. So, it's just over half of the amount of the teaching pay bill, and the net teaching pay bill is about £1 billion. Any small increase to those pay bills is going to put massive pressure on local government budgets.

Thank you. Suzy has a got a brief supplementary and then I do want to go on to the settlement.

My question is that—. This is just teachers now, not TAs and all the rest of it. We've been told categorically by the Minister that the pay award is being fully covered, and the pension costs are being fully covered. How come you're telling us something different? Just for teaching staff.

Medraf i eich helpu chi yn fanna, efallai, fel rhywun sy'n creu'r gyllideb. Gwnaf i roi enghraifft i chi o Gyngor Gwynedd efallai. Roedd setliad Cyngor Gwynedd yn ei gyfanrwydd y flwyddyn ddiwethaf, ar gyfer 2019-20, yn negatif, so dydyn ni ddim yn cael pres ychwanegol gan y Llywodraeth. Dim o gwbl. Mae'n pres ni yn mynd i lawr. Rŵan, mae chwyddiant cyflogau ac yn y blaen ym maes ysgolion yn unig i ni yn £4 miliwn, iawn? Os ydy'n cyllid ni'n mynd i lawr, pan mae'r Llywodraeth yn dweud ein bod ni'n cael y pres ar gyfer chwyddiant cyflogau—wel, lle mae o? Lle mae o? Beth y maen nhw'n ei ddweud pan maen nhw'n dweud eu bod nhw'n rhoi pres i mewn ar gyfer y setliad ydy—. Beth maen nhw'n ei ddweud mewn gwirionedd ydy: petasai nhw heb roi'r ychwanegiad i mewn i'r setliad, buasai'n setliad ni'n waeth. Dyna maen nhw'n ei ddweud. Buasai fo ddim ychydig bach yn waeth. Buasai fo lot yn waeth. Wedyn, dŷn ni'n cael y datganiadau yma—'Dŷn ni wedi rhoi'r pres i mewn'—ond, yn ei chyfanrwydd, dydy llywodraeth leol—. Mae'r setliad yn negyddol, ac felly dŷn ni ddim yn cael pres ychwanegol, nac ydym? Y disgwyliad ydy, mae'n debyg, ydy y bydd yn rhaid inni ei gymryd o wasanaethau eraill er mwyn talu amdano fo, felly. Ond mewn unrhyw sefyllfa lle mae'r setliad yn ei gyfanrwydd ar gyfer llywodraeth leol yn mynd i lawr, mae dweud ein bod ni wedi cael y pres fel llywodraeth leol i dalu am chwyddiant athrawon—dydy o ddim yn gwneud synnwyr, nac ydy?   

I could help you there, maybe, as somebody who creates a budget. I'll give you an example from Gwynedd county council. The settlement from Gwynedd Council, in total, last year, for 2019-20, was negative, so we don't have additional funding from the Government. None at all. Our money has decreased. Now, inflation of wages and so on in schools—for us, that's £4 million, okay? If our budget goes down, when the Government says that we are having the money for inflation in wages—well, where is it? When they say they are giving money for the settlement, what they are saying, in truth, is that if they hadn't given us that additional amount, our settlement would be worse. That's what they are saying. It wouldn't be a little bit better. It would be far worse. So, we are having these statements all the time, that they've given us money, but, in total, local government—. The settlement is negative, so we don't have additional money, do we? The expectation is that we have to take it from other services to pay for it. But in any situation where the settlement in total for local government is decreasing, saying that we've had the money as local government to pay for the inflation of teachers' pay—it doesn't make sense, does it?

Okay. I do want to move on, but this is a very important point. So, maybe you could give the committee a note on where you feel the disparity is, and we will raise that when we've got the Minister in for scrutiny on this in two weeks' time. The next questions are on the local government settlement formula, from Dawn.

Thank you, Chair. It kind of builds on everything you've already been saying, really, because we've had—. A number of people have come in and given evidence, talking about the insufficiency of local government funding, and that kind of brings you around to looking at the local government funding formula. What we've been consistently told by the Welsh Government is that the formula—I'm not talking about the quantum, now; I'm talking about the formula—is something that has been agreed with the WLGA, and that if the WLGA can agree amongst themselves—the 22 authorities can agree amongst themselves—a different formula that might produce different funding settlements, they would be prepared to consider that, but that the 22 can't agree. So, I'd really like your views on the current funding settlement formula, whether you think there is a different formula that would better deliver for local authorities across Wales, bearing in mind that every local authority has different needs, has different aspects to its formula and so on, and how will you get 22 local authorities to agree the commonality of formula that you think will benefit you more than the current one does? So, there are quite a few questions in there, but I think you're getting the point I'm trying to make.

09:50

I think almost everyone expresses dissatisfaction with some aspect of the formula at some time, but I believe it's probably the best that we've got, to be honest, because different authorities will have different problems with the formula, whether they be rural or urban, whether they be in deprived areas or more affluent areas. So, if you like, you could go around in circles on this when, really, the problem that's facing us—both Welsh Government and local government—is the size of the pie, not who gets what slice of it—that's my personal view. And to distract ourselves from the arguments about the need for a bigger pie, a need for more money to give local services a break, I think that's where our focus should be, because I think it ends up being a bit of a thankless task trying to—. What I would hate to see is the formula used like it is across the border in England, where you just flick up the switch for sparsity, if you want to give more money to rural authorities or more affluent authorities, and you flick up the switch on deprivation if you want to give more money to—. You know, it's used very politically in England like that, and I don't think we want to get into that situation in Wales.

The formula has been discussed for the last 20 years since the formula was constructed; it's an imperfect solution. If you've got 22 authorities, a fixed amount of funding that has to be shared between the 22 authorities—the formula's population based, with weightings for sparsity, deprivation and other factors. Inevitably with the formula, there will be an authority that gets more than everybody else, there will be an authority that gets less than everybody else. No matter how you change the formula, there will always be somebody who gets more and there will be somebody who gets less. It's an imperfect solution but it's the best we can come up with. We have these discussions internally within local government, within the WLGA. We've had these discussions with various Assembly committees over the last 20 years as well.

Yes. As one of the local authorities—with the Vale of Glamorgan being the one with the least funding, we've made representations over a number of years, and our plea, really, has been one of transparency and wanting to understand why we're in the position we are in. However, I would agree with Anthony that that is a distraction and discussions about the formula have been going on for many years. I think what we need to look at in Wales is the overall quantum for education. We need to look at what is the cost of educating a child in Wales, stripping away deprivation, stripping away sparsity, because they can be overlaid afterwards. What is the fundamental basic cost of educating a child in Wales? And it needs to be built up from that base.

I just want to say something about the kind of overall structure of the formula and maybe just address that question about historic data. The formula has evolved from a formula that existed prior to devolution, which, if you looked at it, is not that much different from what exists now. There's an adjustment there—obviously pupils are a cost driver, so they're in the formula; an adjustment for deprivation and an adjustment for sparsity now. Over the years, the distribution sub-group has considered—and I could give you a note—a timeline of what aspects—

—the distribution sub-group has looked at over the years. But one of the big issues, and one of the big criticisms of the formula, is the use of census data that dates from 1991. So, there are obvious weaknesses in that—there have been two censuses since. The problem is that the way sparsity is measured is quite a complex and sophisticated calculation. It's not just about population densities and things that are based on geographic information systems and digital maps. The problem's been one of a technical nature that you can't just update the census indicator that's in there, the old 1991 census data; you have to recalibrate the whole construct. And when you start recalibrating the whole construct and turning the dials and the weights of the different indicators, whether it's pupils, the sparsity or the deprivation, then you start throwing lots of money around, and this enormous amount of financial turbulence, I think, has been one of the barriers to updating the formula, because the distribution sub-group in the mid to late 2000s probably considered every conceivable permutation and combination and variance of different sparsity indicators, and updating the underlying expenditure data that is possible. So, now, I think—perhaps my colleague later will say something on this—the local government members of the DSG want to take it on a different journey.

09:55

I've got a supplementary from Hefin and Janet. I'm going to appeal for brief supplementaries, please, because we've got a lot to get through, and for brief answers. Hefin.

Just the fact that I raised this with the Minister in the Chamber last week, and she said, 'Well, look, if you're open to changing the formula, local government, consortia, the WLGA—' she's open to that discussion. So, is it the fact that it's just too complicated to open?

Efallai y gallaf i ateb hwnna. Dwi’n meddwl, fedrwn ni ddim tanlinellu digon y pwynt yr oedd Cynghorydd Anthony Hunt yn ei wneud. Os dŷn ni’n canolbwyntio ar sut dŷn ni’n rhannu’r gacen, dŷn ni’n tynnu’r sylw oddi wrth y peth pwysig, sef beth ydy maint y gacen yn y lle cyntaf. Achos, pan dwi’n mynd rownd Cymru, un peth mae pawb yn cytuno arno fo yw dŷn ni ddim yn cael digon yn rhyw faes neu’i gilydd. Mae pob prif weithredwr yn dweud wrthyf i, ‘Dŷn ni ddim yn cael digon yn y maes yma, dŷn ni ddim yn cael digon yn y maes yma, ac mae’r fformiwla ar fai.’ Mi ydyn ni— . Fel yr oedd Jon yn ei ddweud, mae yna hypothesis bod yna ffordd well o’i wneud o a dŷn ni wrthi’n trafod yn y DSG fel aelodau llywodraeth leol, efo swyddogion y Llywodraeth, y gwaith y buasai angen ei wneud er mwyn profi’r hypothesis yna, a dŷn ni wrthi’n gwneud hynny ar hyn o bryd. Ond, dydy o ddim yn waith fedrwch chi’i wneud dros nos, mae’n mynd i gymryd amser hir i ddod at yr ateb yna.

Felly, dwi’n meddwl bod y Falhala dŷn ni’n edrych amdano fo, efallai, yn y dyfodol, ond mae yna lot o waith i’w wneud. A’r peryg ydy rŷm ni’n tynnu’n sylw oddi ar y prif beth, sef maint y gacen, a chanolbwyntio’n hymdrechion, efallai—. Mae’r gwaith yna’n mynd ymlaen yn araf deg, ond mi wnaiff o gymryd amser maith i ddod i derfyn, achos dŷch chi’n mynd i orfod testio gwahanol hypotheses a chael y data i’w cefnogi nhw. Ond mae o’n mynd yn ôl at bwynt yr oedd Paula yn ei wneud gynnau, sef, a oes yna ffordd symlach, oes yna ffordd mwy intuitive o adeiladu’r fformiwla yn y bôn, felly?

Perhaps I could answer that. I don't think we can highlight enough the point made by Councillor Anthony Hunt. If we focus on how we share the cake, we draw attention away from the important thing, namely, the size of the cake in the first place. Because when I travel around Wales, one thing that everyone is agreed on is that we don't get enough in certain areas. Every chief executive tells me, 'We don't get enough here, we don't get enough there, and the formula is to blame.' As Jon said, there is a hypothesis that there is a better way of doing this, and we're currently discussing within the DSG, as local government members, with Government officials, the work that would need to be done in order to prove that hypothesis, and we're currently doing that. But, it's not something that can be done overnight. It's going to take a long time to find that solution.

So, I think the Valhalla that we're seeking, perhaps, is somewhere in the future, but there is a great deal of work to be done in the meantime. And the risk is that we take attention away from the main thing, namely the size of the cake, and focus all our efforts elsewhere. That work is happening, it's happening slowly, but it will take a long time to be completed, because you're going to be testing various hypotheses and getting all the data together to support them. But it goes back to the point that Paula made earlier, namely, is there a simpler, more intuitive way of building the formula?

It might be worth the committee looking at the experience of Education and Learning Wales when post-16 funding was taken out of the local government settlement and an attempt was made to set up a national funding formula and planning framework. It proved incredibly difficult; they were turbulent years, and as a consequence, in some years, some institutions saw up to 40 per cent cuts in their funding. I think, eventually, that approach was abandoned. The last time this Assembly committee looked at this issue, at the same time, an academic, Professor Bramley was asked to look at this issue—I don't know if any of you have looked at the report that he produced—but we discussed the work at length with Professor Bramley at the time. Eventually, I think that work was abandoned as well, because the consequences of getting it wrong are disastrous.

Yes, just a quick question, really. As you say, the formula has gone on for years—the discussions around that. Taking on your point, Paula, how do we build transparency into the formula? Because, at a recent workshop, I had teachers talking to me about—they don't understand the funding formula. How do we build that transparency into it?

At the moment, the formula is encapsulated in the Green Book, which I'm sure you're aware of, which is just the sort of output of the formula. I just think we need to understand more about the mechanisms that drive that, but as Jon has said, those are hugely complex, and I'm not sure we can ever wholly make that as transparent as it needs to be. 

10:00

Yes. I think a lot of different issues get conflated in formula issues. The local government formula's just a relative needs thing, it's not an absolute need, and I think that's what confuses schools, headteachers and teachers, to be perfectly honest. 

Okay, thanks. Janet, the next questions are from you on the approach to allocating funding for schools. Brief questions, please. 

Yes. What is the main purpose of the indicator-based assessments within the local government settlement? For example, what regard do local authorities have for the IBAs and how do they influence decisions about budget allocations? 

Gwnaf i ateb hwn, efallai, achos mae'n rhan o fy ngwaith i i ddyrannu adnoddau, wrth gwrs. Beth sy'n rhaid inni ddallt—ac mae'n mynd yn ôl at bwynt Jon gynnau—y cyfan ydy'r IBAs yn y Llyfr Gwyrdd ydy construct mathemategol ar gyfer dyrannu adnoddau. Os oes yna unrhyw un yng Nghymru'n meddwl bod yr IBA yn cynrychioli beth ddylech chi ei wario ar bwnc penodol, mae o'n hollol anghywir, ac mae'n rhaid inni fod yn glir am hynna.

Dydy IBA ddim yn cynrychioli faint ddylech chi fod yn ei wario ar rywbeth. Dyna'i gyd ydy o ydy set o IBAs sy'n dod at ei gilydd i fedru dyrannu un gacen o faint bynnag o filiynau o bunnoedd mae llywodraeth leol yn ei dderbyn gan y Llywodraeth. Rŵan, mae o'n seiliedig ar mathematical construct, lines of best fit a rhyw bethau mathemategol, a dyma pam does yna neb yn ei ddallt o, achos construct mathemategol ydy o. Ond mae o'n bwysig ofnadwy ein bod ni'n dallt nad ydy IBA ddim yn ddatganiad o faint ddylai rhywun fod yn gwario ar rywbeth achos, mewn ffordd, y cyfan ydy IBA ydy lein fathemategol, a bydd pob awdurdod yn gwario'n uwch neu'n is na'r lein yna, a fedraf i ddim dweud wrthych chi os ydyn nhw'n gwario beth ddylen nhw neu beidio achos yr unig un a fedr ddweud hynna ydy'r awdurdod. So, fe wnaf i ddefnyddio Gwynedd, er enghraifft: pum mlynedd yn ôl, roeddem ni'n gwario £4 miliwn yn llai na'n IBA ni ar addysg. Heddiw, dŷn ni'n gwario £1 miliwn yn fwy na'n IBA ar addysg. Dŷn ni ddim wedi newid ein blaenoriaethau. Yr unig beth sydd wedi newid ydy bod yr IBA wedi sifftio oherwydd y construct mathemategol y tu ôl iddo fo, dŷch chi'n gwybod? So, dwi wedi cael prif weithredwyr yn gofyn imi egluro iddyn nhw cyn heddiw a ddylen nhw fod yn iwsio'r IBA ar gyfer dyrannu pres y tu fewn i'w cyllideb nhw. Na, chi fel aelodau lleol sydd yn gyfrifol am ddyrannu a blaenoriaethu, ac mae'r IBAs yn irrelevant, bron a bod, i ddyrannu pres, felly.

I can answer that, perhaps, because part of my work is allocating resources, of course. It goes back to Jon's point earlier: all the IBAs in the Green Book are is a mathematical construct for distributing resources. If anyone in Wales thinks that the IBA represents what you should spend in any specific area, they're entirely wrong, and we have to be clear about that.

The IBA doesn't represent how much you should be spending on something. All it is is a set of IBAs that are drawn together in order to distribute one cake of however many millions of pounds that a local authority receives from Government. It is based on a mathematical construct, lines of best fit and other mathematical things, and that's why nobody understands it, because it's a mathematical construct, but it's very important that we understand that an IBA isn't a statement of how much should be spent on something because, in a way, all an IBA is is a mathematical line and every authority will spend more or less than that line, and I can't tell you if they're spending what they should be spending because the only one that can say that is the authority itself. I'll use Gwynedd, for example: five years ago, we were spending £4 million less than our IBA on education. Today, we are spending £1 million more than our IBA on education. We haven't changed our priorities. The only thing that's changed is that the IBA has shifted because of the mathematical construct underpinning it. So, I've had chief executives ask me to explain to them before today whether they should be using the IBA for allocating funding within their budgets. Well, no, it's you as local members who are responsible for allocation and prioritisation, and the IBAs are irrelevant, almost, to the distribution of funds. 

That's a really valid point, then. If they're irrelevant and there's this inconsistency on whether they're used or not, what is the point of them at all?

Well, they're part of the overall framework for allocating money to local government. 

There is a consistency, but it's there in order to share the cake out, essentially. It's a mathematical way of sharing the cake out, and it's also a mathematical and independent way of sharing it. You can't affect the formula personally. I, in Gwynedd, can't affect the formula. It's an independent adjudication of how much money we should get in the whole, not for education, not for social services, but in the whole, essentially. 

We chewed this over in there, in the Chamber, with various Ministers—there have been a few, there's been 10, we're on No. 11 now, since devolution was formed—local government Ministers, and some have said, 'This is your formula; these are the systems you want in place.' Would you like to see the process streamlined?

Yes, and that's what we're doing in the discussions I mentioned earlier about the education formula. We're looking to see whether there's a better way of doing it. Now, there may not be a better way of doing it, and we'll have to stick with what we've got, essentially, but, yes, we're trying to see—

Because this is the—[Inaudible.]—budget, and that's the local government settlement. They're two different things. 

Yes, but it's the funding formula that determines exactly what—. I should know. 

I think we've established that any change to the formula is a work in progress. So, if we can—

At least provisionally there is some work going on, because the last Minister said—

It was only a small point, just to say it's a distribution mechanism rather than a spending target. That's the key.

10:05

Yes, absolutely. What factors do local authorities consider when deciding how much funding to retain for centrally administered services for schools, and how much to delegate to schools themselves—and how efficiently and effectively do those arrangements currently work?

Overall delegation rates are just over 84 per cent now, which is up from 76 per cent in 2011-12. Leaving aside school transport, that delegation rate increases to 88 per cent. Obviously, there's a decision to make whether a function is better co-ordinated at a local level or a school level, and a number of different considerations will come into that, and a number of different approaches that may make delegation rates seem higher or lower in some authorities, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing it right or wrong. 

There's been—again, we've had a lot of discussion over delegation rates over the years, and local government, the WLGA, has worked with successive Ministers. I think there's an underlying principle there that decisions about how funding is allocated are best taken as close to the point of delivery as possible, which is why there is this drive to increase delegation rates, and there has been an increase over time. As Anthony says, in some instances, there are some authorities—Gwynedd might be one, Ceredigion, Powys—where, because transport costs are disproportionately high, there are other elements of retained funding where authorities have statutory responsibilities to retain that funding. So, I can't remember the figure, but I think it's around 5 per cent that legally can't be delegated. There are other areas where, for insurance and other issues, operating at scale and doing it centrally adds more value than delegating it to schools, and then, more locally, authorities will work with their schools and get some kind of agreement about what's retained and what's delegated to the schools. 

But I think it would be misleading to simplify the debate as being that delegating everything to the schools is a good thing, and retaining some element of funding is a bad thing. 

Okay, thank you. Have you got a supplementary on that—not on individual schools? Because that's the next section. 

No, no—on delegated. Just to clarify for me, the money that goes to consortia—is that considered delegated funding, if it's not from a direct grant?

Okay. We've got some questions now on the allocation of budgets to individual schools from Hefin David. 

In order to iron out the inequalities, wouldn't it just be easier for Welsh Government to directly fund schools?

Can I come in in the first instance? You could do that, and there is a debate about doing it. The ELWa example, where there was a national funding formula and planning framework, was an example of where there was an attempt to fund the school sixth forms and post-16 FE colleges directly. I think most people would conclude that it wasn't particularly successful. 

Within local government, our view is that decisions about how services are run and funded and managed are best taken as close to the point of delivery as possible, and that local authorities are best placed to take account of local circumstances. Whereas national government can set the strategic direction in terms of policies, authorities are best placed to take account of what their immediate circumstances are, and because they're democratically accountable, that people have more of a say in terms of how the decisions that are taken are made, and they can have an impact on those decisions.

But it is a contestable issue, and I think when you look at successful education systems around the world, the more successful ones have some kind of middle tier between the national government, the state, and the individual school. So I think that there's a conventional view that shifting funding, delegating funding or decentralising is a better way of doing it. 

10:10

I just think it all comes back again to the size of the cake, and I think this is sort of deck chairs on the Titanic. The problem we both face, collectively, is a lack of funding in the system as a whole, and I think changing things around so there's some kind of direct funding mechanism doesn't get around that problem of a lack of quantum in the first place. And you'd risk creating, again, winners and losers, and the winning schools from any such formula would no doubt think it was the best thing in the world, but the losing schools would be plunged into a crisis situation. 

But there is a degree of inequality across the country already, isn't there? There are different levels of funding for different schools in different regions of the country that may even be very similar kinds of schools. So that problem already exists. 

And there are often good reasons for varying levels of funding, but the trouble is, even if a school, you'd say, historically has been overfunded compared to another school, if you suddenly try and take that back to a national formula, there'll be big consequences in terms of employment in that school and the service that the kids are getting. So it's a difficult thing. I just think it comes back again to the size of the cake. We need more money to fund public services. 

I suppose the situation in England is instructive, because it hasn't been an easy process there and there's still variation in school spend in England, despite the moves towards a national formula. And that hasn't been an overnight move, that's something that started in 2003-04 with the creation of the dedicated schools grant, which was carved out of the English revenue support grant. And it was in 2003-04 or 2004-05 that, actually, the UK Government created a funding crisis in schools in England because of the moves and the reallocation of resources. And that was in a time of enormous increases in local government spending. So you can imagine what kind of challenges it might pose here in a time of declining spend. 

Yes, it's inevitable, to a certain extent, that there will be disparity in the budgets of schools across Wales, because local authorities receive different amounts of funding, so they've got different amounts of funding to pass on to schools in the first instance. 

The formulae that local authorities use for allocating their budgets to schools are very similar, actually, across Wales, and they are shared between finance officers, but there are local differences that are taken into account. Mention has been made of school transport in some areas, so less will be delegated. And authorities take different decisions over the delegation of funding to buy back services from the local authority, or wherever a school chooses to purchase those services from. So it's really difficult to compare a school budget in a certain local authority area to the next, because of all those differences. 

So do you think, therefore, that although the figures appear to show that there are different levels of funding in different regions of the country, actually there are other things going on that even that out? Is that what you're suggesting?

Yes, you would need to take into account those other issues that I've mentioned. 

Can I come in as well? On your last point, I think there is an issue of financial recording and reporting as well. Because there isn't consistency and because authorities are structured in a different way, the way costs are reported and allocated is different as well. So it makes comparing like with like very difficult. 

Okay. And my final question is about reserves. We know there are schools holding reserves, and I know that there are schools that are struggling and are using the reserves to service deficits. We know this is happening. But we also know that those schools that are holding large reserves make the news. Can you give us some insight into how local authorities might use legislative powers to encourage schools to dispense with their reserves to manage their difficulties?

Yes, we do have statutory powers to claw back balances, but they're quite inflexible, and I'm not aware of any instances where school balances have been clawed back in Wales. What we are required to do is to instruct a school to spend in those circumstances, and if a school then fails to spend its balances, then we can claw it back, but it has to be redistributed to schools using an agreed formula within a certain timescale, and the timescale is very tight. So, what happens usually on the ground is we would have an informal discussion with the school before we have to move to statutory powers. 

10:15

Are you suggesting that the method that you use is just too cumbersome to—

I think you have, haven't you? I just think you're saying that the method you use is too cumbersome to actually use. 

Anybody else on the issue of reserves? No. Okay. Have you got any ideas about how that should be improved, then? Is that something you think that we should be recommending? It seems a bit crazy, really, that you just instruct a school to spend. Isn't there a risk with that that they'll just spend for the sake of it? Suzy, do you want to ask yours, then?

Do you want to answer that first? Perhaps you could do them together. All I was going to say is that we've taken evidence from some schools that last minute funding that arrives in the pot at the end of the financial year artificially inflates reserves. I think the questions are combined.  

Yes, that's absolutely right. There was an example of that at the end of the last financial year, where funding was allocated to schools for building maintenance costs for them to offset against costs that had been incurred during the year, and that was allocated at the end of the financial year. So, it had the effect of artificially inflating school balances. While that wasn't significant perhaps at an individual school level, across a local authority, that was significant. So, yes, school balances were artificially inflated. But the overall trend in school balances is one of reducing balances across Wales. 

It still hasn't answered Lynne's question about 'Get spending' in the last—

Is there a better way of doing it, then? Should the Welsh Government be looking at changing the system of handling reserves? 

I would like there to be more flexibility in how that funding can be used, so that it can be clawed back and allocated to priority areas, rather than instructing a school to spend, because there is a danger that that spend will not have the impact that it could have if it's allocated to priority areas elsewhere. 

Can I come in, Chair? I think the current regulations came in in 2010, and at the time there was considerable discussion between the Welsh Government and authorities. There were differing views at the time, and they weren't at a level of principle, they were more about what would actually be effective and what would work. 

The other thing to add is that authorities have good relations with their schools, and not just in this area, but in other areas as well. They very often don't use the statutory powers they have. They're useful as a backstop, if I can use that word, as it were. The fact that it's there means that, very often, you don't actually have to use it.  

I was going to add that many schools with seemingly large balances do often save over a period of years for something like building development works that wouldn't otherwise be funded by the council. So, it's something to bear in mind. And many of those schools also generate an income that goes into their school balances for a specific purpose. And Chris mentioned local authorities working with schools. We will work with schools where they have plans in place like that, to ensure that they can be realised within a specified period. So, often, I would say, schools, certainly in my local authority, they are required to have a plan to show how they're going to spend those balances.

10:20

Just finally, do you think that this whole concept of reserves is a problem, and actually is a bit of a red herring and it isn't the big problem that perhaps we sometimes paint it out to be?

I think it's prudent to have a certain level of reserves. There are unknown circumstances that come to schools, which they need to fund. I don't think it's a significant issue. As I said, the balances across Wales are reducing. I think there needs to be far more focus on school deficits than balances.

Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on unhypothecated versus targeted funding from Siân.

Diolch. Rwy'n derbyn mai'r broblem fawr ydy bod y cwantwm ar gyfer addysg ddim yn ddigon yn y lle cyntaf, ond rhan o'n gwaith ni fel pwyllgor ydy ceisio gweld a oes rhywbeth o fewn y system, fel y mae hi ar hyn o bryd, y gellid ei wneud er mwyn sicrhau bod mwy o arian yn cyrraedd yr ysgolion. Mae busnes y grantiau uniongyrchol sydd yn dod gan Lywodraeth Cymru—mae yna £219 miliwn yn cael ei ddirprwyo i ysgolion ar ffurf grantiau wedi eu neilltuo. Ydy hwnna'n ffordd effeithiol o gael yr arian i'r ysgolion?

Thank you. I accept that the major problem is that the quantum for education isn't sufficient in the first instance, but part of our work as a committee is to try and see if there's something within the system, as it currently stands, that could be done in order to ensure that more money is directed to schools. The business of these direct grants that come from the Welsh Government—there is £219 million delegated to schools in the form of grants, and that's been hypothecated. Is that an effective way of getting the money to the schools?

Ein dadl ni fel cymdeithas yw, lle bynnag mae'n bosib, dylai'r grantiau cael eu rhoi i mewn i'r setliad, achos—. Dof yn ôl at hyn. Dŷn ni ddim yn anghytuno'n llwyr â'r egwyddor o gael grantiau i gefnogi polisïau newydd, ond byddem ni'n dadlau ei fod yn ffordd fwy effeithiol ac effeithlon o ddefnyddio'r arian, o ychwanegu gwerth, drwy ei roi i gyd i mewn i'r setliad, a fydd yn galluogi awdurdodau i wneud penderfyniadau yn lleol ynglŷn â ble mae'r galw, ac wrth gwrs hefyd bydd yn torri nôl ar y gwariant ychwanegol ar y fiwrocratiaeth sy'n gysylltiedig â grantiau ac adrodd ar y grantiau ac yn y blaen.

Yn hanesyddol, beth rŷm ni wedi'i ddadlau yw, pan fydd y Llywodraeth yn cyflwyno rhyw fath o gynllun neu bolisi newydd, ei fod yn addas i ariannu'r cynllun drwy grant hyd nes ei fod yn amlwg bod y polisi neu'r cynllun newydd yn cael ei weithredu'n llawn. Unwaith rŷm ni'n cyrraedd y pwynt yna, fe ddylai'r arian wedyn fod yn mynd i mewn i'r setliad, a fydd yn rhoi cymaint o hyblygrwydd ag sy'n bosib i awdurdodau, ac eto, fel roeddwn i'n sôn yn gynharach, fel bod y penderfyniadau ynglŷn â sut y mae'r arian yn cael ei wario yn cymryd lle mor agos ag sy'n bosib i'r pwynt lle mae'r gwasanaeth yn cael ei ddarparu.

Our argument as an association is that, wherever possible, those grants should be included in the settlement, because—. I'll come back to this. We don't disagree entirely with the principle of having grants to support new policies and initiatives, but I would argue that it's a more effective and efficient way of using those resources and adding value by providing it all within the settlement, which enables local authorities to make decisions at a local level on where demand is greatest, and it also cuts the additional expenditure on bureaucracy related to grants and reporting on those grants.

Historically, what we've argued is that, when the Government does introduce some new scheme or policy, it is appropriate for that scheme to be funded via a grant up until the point where it becomes apparent that that new policy or scheme is fully implemented. Once we get to that point, the funding should transfer to the settlement, which provides as much flexibility as possible to local authorities, and, as I mentioned earlier, ensures that decisions on how those funds are spent are made as close as possible to the service provision.

Ond o safbwynt Llywodraeth, sut maen nhw'n gallu bod yn glir bod blaenoriaethau'n cael eu cyflawni os nad oes yna rediad trwodd fel yna?

But in terms of the Government, how can they be clear that the priorities are being achieved if there isn't a run right through like that?

Efallai daw Dilwyn i mewn ar hyn, ond beth fyddwn i'n ei ddadlau yw y dylem ni fod yn edrych ar y deilliannau mewn cyd-destun mwy eang. Rŷm ni wedi sôn yn barod y bore yma fod yna dipyn o adrodd ynglŷn â sut y mae awdurdodau'n gwario eu harian—mae awdurdodau yn adrodd i'r Llywodraeth ac yn y blaen—felly mae yna nifer o ffyrdd sy'n rhoi sicrwydd i'r Llywodraeth, ond mae rhywun yn deall pan fydd Gweinidog yn cyflwyno unrhyw fath o gynlluniau neu bolisïau newydd eu bod nhw am sicrhau bod y polisïau hynny'n cael eu delifro, eu darparu a'u bod yn cael eu gweithredu'n llawn. Tu mewn i lywodraeth leol rŷm ni'n deall y flaenoriaeth ynglŷn â'r Gweinidogion a'r Llywodraeth, ond ein dadl ni yw y byddai rhoi'r rheini i mewn i'r setliad yn dal i fod yn ffordd fwy effeithlon ac effeithiol o sicrhau bod y deilliannau yn cael eu cyflawni.

Dilwyn might want to come in on this, but I would argue that we should be looking at the outcomes in a broader sense. We've already discussed this morning that there is quite a bit of reporting on how authorities spend their funds—authorities report to Government and so on—so there are a number of ways of providing assurances to Government, but one does understand that when a Minister does introduce any sort of new initiatives or policies, they do want to ensure that those policies are delivered and implemented in full. So, within local government, we understand the priorities of Ministers and the Government, but our argument is that putting those in the settlement would still be a more efficient and effective way of ensuring that the outcomes are delivered.

A gaf fi jest ychwanegu ychydig bach at hwnna? Hynny ydy, dwi'n cytuno'n llwyr efo'r hyn y mae Chris yn ei ddweud. Fel arf dros dro, dwi'n meddwl ei fod o'n help i'r Llywodraeth i gael amcanion wedi cael eu cyflawni. Ond os ydych chi'n edrych ar rywbeth fel y cyfnod sylfaen, mi ddaeth y grant cyfnod sylfaen i mewn yn 2013-14, dwi'n meddwl, ar lefel o £99 miliwn. Beth mae'r grant cyfnod sylfaen yn gwneud ydy ariannu'r cyfnod sylfaen yn yr ysgolion. Mae o wedi mynd lawr, wedi cael ei dorri, bron yn barhaus ers yr adeg yna, a beth mae hynny'n gwneud ydy dau beth. Un ydy nad ydy o'n helpu i ysgogi amcanion addysgol, yn naturiol, ond y peth arall mae o'n gwneud ydy rhoi diffyg gallu i gynllunio i ysgolion. Os nad ydyn nhw'n cael gwybod am y grant tan yn hwyr yn y dydd, sut maen nhw fod i gynllunio ar gyfer y flwyddyn ganlynol sydd i ddod?

Mae'r cyfnod sylfaen yn rhywbeth, yn fy marn i—ac nid wy'n siarad ar ran y WLGA yma, rwy'n siarad fel prif weithredwr—ddylai fod wedi bod yn y setliad flynyddoedd yn ôl. Mae o'n chunk mawr o bres, ond ariannu'r cyfnod sylfaen yn yr ysgolion mae o. Does yna ddim rheswm i hwnna beidio â bod yn y setliad bellach. Ond dyma ydy'r broblem, dwi'n meddwl—dŷn ni'n dechrau efo grantiau penodol ac maen nhw'n aros fel grantiau penodol am byth, i bob pwrpas, felly, sydd yn andwyo'n gallu ni i fod yn hyblyg hefo'r ariannu. Dwi'n meddwl bod yna ddadl dros gael y grantiau yma nôl i'r setliad mor fuan â bo modd.

May I just add a little to that? I agree entirely with what Chris has said. As a temporary tool, I think it helps the Government to achieve goals. But I think that if you look at the foundation phase, the grant for the foundation phase was introduced in 2013-14, at a level of £99 million. What the foundation phase grant does is fund the foundation phase in schools. It's been cut almost continuously since then, and that does two things. One of those things is it doesn't help to boost educational attainment, but another thing it does is it gives a lack of planning provision to schools. Because if schools don't know about the grant until quite late in the day, how are they meant to plan for the coming year? 

The foundation phase is something, in my opinion—and I'm not speaking on behalf of the WLGA, but as a chief executive—that should have been in the settlement years ago. It's a huge chunk of money, but it's funding the foundation phase in schools. There is no reason for that not to be in the settlement. But that's the problem, I think—we begin with specific grants and they remain as specific grants forever, which is detrimental to our ability to be flexible with money. I think there is an argument for having those grants back into the settlement as soon as possible.

10:25

Efo'r grant cyfnod sylfaen, er enghraifft, felly, oes gyda chi rhyw syniad faint mae'n costio i'r system yna nad ydy o'n mynd drwy'r setliad—ei fod o'n dod drwy grant, gyda'r monitro a'r fiwrocratiaeth sydd ynghlwm â hwnna a grantiau eraill hefyd?

With the foundation phase grant, for example, therefore, do you know how much it costs for that system that is doesn't go through the settlement—that grant-based, with all the bureaucracy related to that and other grants too?

Mae hwn yn rhywbeth—. Fe wnes i eistedd flynyddoedd yn ôl ar dasglu'r Gweinidog addysg bryd hynny—dwi ddim yn cofio pwy oedd y Gweinidog addysg bryd hynny—i edrych ar ffyrdd o leihau y baich gweinyddol oedd yn mynd o gwmpas delio efo grantiau penodol. A dwi'n meddwl bryd hynny—roedd yna sôn bryd hynny, a dwi ddim yn cofio beth oedd y ffigur, ond o dop fy mhen, dwi'n meddwl bod yna sôn y buasem ni'n gallu arbed £5 miliwn petasem ni'n cael gwared ar grantiau. Dwi'n meddwl yn bersonol mai gorddatganiad oedd hwnnw—eithaf sylweddol, a dweud y gwir. Ond mae yna ymdrech—y broblem ydy mai casgliad o waith bach unigolion yma a thraw ydy o, ond pan ydych chi'n adio fo i gyd at ei gilydd—a dwi'n meddwl bod hyn yn broblem drwy'r sector gyhoeddus, a dweud y gwir—dŷn ni'm yn gwybod beth yw gwir gost rhai o'r pethau yma, achos mae o'n ddarnau bychan o ymdrech pawb ar hyd y daith. Ond, yn naturiol, os ydyn ni'n gorfod sifftio pres o gwmpas, mae yna ymdrech ac adnodd yn mynd i wneud hynny, yn hytrach na'i fod o yn y setliad a'i fod o'n rhan o gyllido ysgolion yn sylfaenol.

This is something—. Years ago, I sat on a taskforce for the Minister for education back then—I can't remember who it was then—to look at ways of reducing the administrative burden to do with specific grants. And I think back then there was talk, and I'm not sure what the figure was, but off the top of my head, I think we could have saved £5 million. I think personally that was overstating it—quite significantly, actually. But there is an effort under way—the problem is it's a collection of small individuals' work here and there, but when you add it all together—and I think this is a problem throughout the public sector, truth be told—we don't know the true cost of some of these things, because they're so fragmented, a little bit of everyone's efforts. But, naturally, if we have to shift money around, then there effort and resource is used to do that, rather than it being in the settlement and part of the school's budget.

Building on what Dilwyn just said, there is an allocation within the large grants for the administration of that grant, whether it be consortia or local authorities administrating it, so a percentage of that funding is given over to the bureaucracy of administering it. There has been an increase in the number of grants for education in very recent years. Our concern is that there isn't always new funding and that funding has to come from somewhere. So, that funding is being taken away from the core funding that's available for schools. So, whilst it may be there to deliver on a priority, schools are saying, 'We haven't got sufficient funding to run our school because there's insufficient core funding.' So, really, it's got to come from somewhere. It's got to come from within that overall cake.

Sef yr un ddadl ag yr oedd Dilwyn yn gwneud ynglŷn â dydy’r arian ddim o angenrheidrwydd yn arian ychwanegol. Yr un ddadl ydy honno mewn gwiroedd, yntê. O ran—

Which is the same argument that Dilwyn was making about the money not necessarily being additional money. That's the same argument, in truth. So—

Roeddwn i jest am ychwanegu, yn draddodiadol, mae yna gonsensws o ran ein trafodaethau ni gyda'r Llywodraeth. Rŷn ni'n amcanu bod rhwng 5 a 10 y cant o werth unrhyw grant yn cael ei wario ar y gweinyddu a'r fiwrocratiaeth sy'n berthnasol i'r grant. 

I just wanted to add that, traditionally, there has been a consensus in terms of our discussions with Government. We estimate that between 5 and 10 per cent of any grant is spent on administration and the bureaucracy related to that grant.

Ocê. Ac wedyn y £100 miliwn 'ychwanegol' ar gyfer ysgolion yn benodol i godi safonau drwy'r system grantiau, drwy'r consortia rhanbarthol—beth ydy'ch barn chi am hwnna?

Okay. And then this 'additional' £100 million for schools specifically to raise standards through the grants system, through the regional consortia—what's your opinion about that?

Eto, o'n safbwynt ni fel cymdeithas, fe fyddai'n well gyda fi weld yr arian yna'n mynd mewn i'r setliad, ac awdurdodau wedyn yn gwneud penderfyniadau naill o ran comisiynu neu lle fyddai'r arian yn cael ei wario.

Again, from our point of view as an association, we would prefer to see those funds provided through the settlement, and local authorities then making decisions in terms of commissioning or where that money should be spent.

Okay, thank you. Suzy, did you have a question in this area before going on to ask about the consortia?

Well, yes, it's just to go back to this issue of the size of the pie. Now, I don't dispute what you're saying, but if the pie is small, how it is sliced is even more important, I would argue. We've got a situation where formulae aren't being changed. We've got a situation where, as you said, Anthony Hunt, funds have been spent on the things that are visible. On top of this, then, we now have the targeted funding—a lot of that towards people with needs arising through deprivation—which is actually pretty generous, and on top of a funding formula that already accommodates deprivation.

What I'm hearing from teachers is that they're now worried that the centralised, targeted funding is so out of local authority hands that local authorities are kind of using it—the pupil development grant in particular—as a bit of a smokescreen to cut the core budget. Because some schools will still do pretty well because they're getting PDG. Other schools that aren't eligible for it have really gone below sustainability levels now, and those teachers are saying that this is, well, a political decision by some councils to fight back against what we've been talking about—that the balance between targeted funding and core funding, let's say, isn't something that you support. What would you say to that, because that's what we're hearing?

10:30

Shall I come in? Well, I actually think that that's an argument for streamlining, simplifying and reducing bureaucracy. Again, I actually think that that reinforces the argument for putting all into the settlement and then letting—. Once it goes into the settlement, local authorities' spending—. You know, they are accountable. They have to report on it. Their section 52 reports indicate where the funding is spent. I'd argue that the thing to do there is put all the specific grants into the settlement, hold the authority to account, and they are best able then to decide how that funding is allocated, based on local circumstances.  

Well, it was the point I was making earlier. I do understand that when a Minister in any portfolio area is introducing new initiatives and wants reassurance, and wants to be certain that those initiatives are being delivered—I can see that there is an issue of trust and confidence there. But our argument is that this is the best way of delivering those policy initiatives. I think that, inevitably, these things—you know, they are not simple issues. They are complicated. Education is contestable all over the world. But I think that we are reasonably firm in our views on the best thing to do in these instances.

This is what it boils down to, basically. The conversation that I often have when talking about anything in this area is: the Minister has certain objectives; how does he or she know how that's going to happen and how that's going to work through? I would just appeal that we need to step back a bit and work in a spirit of trust and grown-up partnership and accountability more. How do I know, as a local government leader that, when I give money to a school or any particular part of an organisation that we fund, they are going to do what I want them to do? You just have to have a dialogue there, and I would appeal for more money to go into the RSG—a loosening of the financial levers and a strengthening of the more human interactional levers that can get us to the outcomes without having to go through this system of bureaucracy and inefficiency.

We can work together. We all share an objective to try and get more money into our schools so that they can deliver better services. But I just sometimes think that, in any area, that's better done by building up trust and relaxing a little bit to let people get on with what they are best at getting on with. If I tried to dictate every penny that every school in Torfaen spent, then I would be very bad at it because the professionals on the ground know better than I do. We just have to have that system of trust—and subsidiarity comes into it and all these things—to try and get us to an agreed direction.

Okay. I've got brief supplementaries from Dawn. We do need to go on to the consortia.

Sorry, it was just briefly on the point that Anthony made, and I think it was a very valid point. I think that what I would want to know, Anthony, is: how is a local authority going to be held to account? I take the point about building trust, but what we do know is that local authorities are political bodies. So, one of the problems that you have is, if a political body does not have the same political aspirations as the body that's giving you government, how can you make sure that that policy will be carried out by somebody of a different political colour that has different political objectives? 

10:35

Well, yes—or no political colour. But that's the thing that concerns me.

And do you recognise, from the calls that the committee has had from headteachers' unions, for things like the funding for professional learning, which is so crucial to delivering the reforms, to be ring-fenced, that there are a lot of stakeholders who don't have that trust in all local authorities? You know, some local authorities are very good at passing that money on, but not all of them.

Could I just come in? I speak now as a leader of a local authority, rather than on behalf of all local authorities, because they'll kill me for what I'm just going to say. I'm not asking for a system of trust and just you let everything go; I'm asking for a system of trust and accountability. So, even if an authority is making decisions that you don't agree with, they should be held to account for those decisions.

But don't hold all authorities to account. It's a bit like a teacher—sorry, an apt analogy—who keeps the whole class behind because of the behaviour of one or two individuals. Let's have a situation of that grown-up accountability, when, if an authority isn't doing what the Welsh Government want, or what you as a committee want, ask them questions—hold them to account for that. But don't suppose that that's a general rule of all authorities, because there's good and bad in any circumstance.

So, how would that accountability be enforced? Would it be, 'If you don't spend the money on what we want you to spend it on, we'll withhold it next year'?

Can I come in? There is a massive amount of accountability—

[Inaudible.]—holding to account is sometimes a very—[Inaudible.]—concept.

I was going to say, there is a considerable amount of accountability within the education system. I think there's more transparency in terms of the way local authority spending is reported than is often understood. You've all mentioned, and asked about, spending against IBA. So, we know that that's reported. Authorities do their section 52 returns again, and we know that a considerable amount of information is reported there. Within their own systems, they have scrutiny arrangements, which cut across party lines. As far as the way the education service operates, we know that educational outcomes are scrutinised considerably—we have external examination boards, Estyn operate as an inspectorate, the Wales Audit Office look at the way authorities run. There's a massive accountability framework in place already. But in addition, there's a recognition, I think I mentioned at the outset, within local government that the role of national Government is to set the strategy nationally; the local authorities interpret those strategies and policies locally, according to local circumstances. The truth is, in terms of the reforms that are being introduced at the moment—the additional learning needs reform, the new curriculum and other reforms—there is an amazing amount of consensus and support within local government.

And I often point to the twenty-first century schools initiative. We've given evidence to you as committee before on it, and to other Assembly committees. It's an incredibly successful initiative—it's a partnership, a joint initiative, between the Welsh Government and local authorities. There's a considerable amount of confidence and trust within that system, and it works incredibly well. If you travel around Wales, you can't miss the new school buildings that have been built all over the place—it's a significant, multibillion pound investment, and it does work. And I think, if we could look at the lessons of twenty-first century schools in the way we run other aspects of the education service, then we would gain from that.

Thank you very much. We've just been talking about how tight money is for local authorities for school funding. The consortia—are they value for money?

Obviously, the answer to that will depend on the region. I believe, in Gwent, we're working very well with the Education Achievement Service, to try and raise school standards. But every authority will answer that for their own region.

If you look at the evidence, I think that will vary between regions. And certainly in Central South Consortium, outcomes since the establishment of the consortium in 2012 have improved significantly. Thinking on something Chris said earlier, there is always, though, a question over the impact of the outcomes and what's caused those outcomes in the first instance. And there will be a number of supporting mechanisms for schools in place, and not just those delivered by the consortia, but a number of support services that go in from local authorities as well. So, it's difficult to isolate consortia and establish whether they are the cause for the improvement in outcomes. 

10:40

That's a really interesting answer. If you can't tell that they're value for money, that's really something.

We've heard in some evidence that, in some cases—and I don't know if this is universal—local authorities will retain staff for their own school improvement work at the same time that the consortia is doing what looks like exactly the same school development work. When we have raised this with the Minister, she has said that local authorities fund consortia and are on the boards of these consortia, and why is this happening? So, why is this happening?

It's possible to interpret school improvement in a very narrow way. As local government, we would say that everything that local authorities do in relation to children and education contributes to school improvement and to raising standards and improved outcomes. So, I don't think it's actually as clear cut as it's sometimes made out.

The other issue as well is, as we've been, I think, saying consistently, that local authorities make decisions about their provision based on local circumstances and their immediate need, and they're best placed to make those decisions. The position will vary and circumstances will vary from authority to authority. So, I would expect to see differences. The education consortia are one mechanism for contributing to and delivering school improvement, but the local authorities have a host of other provision as well. So, I'd expect to see differences. But I think it is important to remember, and maybe to reinforce, that the consortia are part of local government—they were created by local government and the functions they deliver are delegated to them. They are governed by joint committees. The structure of the EAS is slightly different. Although the other three are more aligned, they are all structured and deliver services in a different way as well, so it isn't always possible to compare like with like.

If there is anything that the witnesses would like to add, maybe you could drop us a line about the consortia. I think that would be useful, because we have run over time. So, thank you very much for your attendance. It's been a really useful discussion. We would be grateful to receive the note on the teachers' pension and teachers' pay, also on the sequencing with the formula, and the ongoing work would be very beneficial to the committee as well. And you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, following the meeting. Thank you very much for your attendance. The committee will break until 10:50. Thank you.

10:50

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:43 a 10:51.

The meeting adjourned between 10:43 and 10:51.

3. Ymchwiliad i Gyllido Ysgolion: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth
3. Inquiry into School Funding: Evidence Session

Welcome back, everybody. We've got a further evidence session now with the consortia. I'm very pleased to welcome Debbie Harteveld, who is managing director of the Education Achievement Service for South Wast Wales—EAS; Arwyn Thomas, who is managing director at GwE; Geraint Rees, managing director at ERW; and Louise Blatchford, managing director at the central south—

Chair, I'm Esther Thomas. I'm replacing Louise today.

Okay, good to know. Welcome, all of you. We're very pleased to have you here. We've got a lot of stuff to cover, so, if it's okay, we'll go straight into questions, and the first are from Suzy Davies. 

Thank you, Chair. The consortia model of school improvement, that being regional, what's the value for money benefits of it being regional? I don't mind who answers.

Talking from my perspective within south-east Wales, you've seen some of the evidence that we've submitted prior to today. Obviously, there are financial benefits over time to be gained, but some of those are very much centred around economies of scale. From the region in which I work, we've been able to demonstrate over time, in partnership with our local authorities, increased delegation rates to our schools, building capacity of schools over time to be able to deliver key services, breaking down of some of the barriers between local authorities to enable schools to work more openly across boundaries, be able to share best practice, and, I think, certainly from the perspective in which I work, the ability to attract high-quality staff into a regional service to be able to support and work with our schools. A number of those are actually current serving school leaders and teachers, so enabling different pathways into leadership. Certainly, from the perspective in which I work, efficiencies have been gained across working cross-regionally, so not trying to duplicate services, say, in the south-east and in the north, but being able most recently to to work more efficiently together as four, but ultimately serving the needs of our local communities in partnership with our local authorities. 

Before anyone else answers, can I just ask very specifically—? You mentioned that some school leaders come in and work with the consortium and actually go around other schools. They get paid for doing that as well, don't they? So, there's income for their school. Have I understood that right?

Absolutely, and that becomes part of a delegation.

Do they have to use that money to provide their own cover in the school or is it just—?

In my service—the service I work within—we obviously fund their time and their expertise, and it's entirely up to those school leaders how they see best fit that that funding is used within their own school setting. They know their schools. 

10:55

Okay. Thank you. Did anyone else want to come in on this before I move on?

I think the answer is pretty similar. It’s the efficiency, working across six local authorities where we’re in question, especially in specific areas like secondary leadership expertise, and some of the core subjects, in particular maths and English, getting that expertise. And getting that expertise outside of individual local authorities to be working across the region is significant, and using the same kinds of models. Getting collaboration into the system is a significant way forward, in facilitating that—getting schools at teacher level, middle management level and the headteachers working together, and having our headteachers as well leading on specific initiatives and areas, because they are close to the ground, and they've got recent and relative practice.

I think we're moving into a culture where the expectation of sharing—. You know, as four regions, as schools, we're being driven by the financial modelling, if you like, to compete, but now I think we're in an era of collaboration. It’s a culture that’s being encouraged and developed, and schools are buying into it.

Okay. How do you use the money that you actually get from local authorities, then, rather than through direct grant funding? And do you focus only on, I don't know, red category schools or amber category schools? Who's getting to see you, basically?

I would repeat something about the previous point, in a sense, around the value for money, because this is part of a wider ecosystem of education, and we’ve had missing links in the chain over generations in Wales, one of them being the link between our higher education institutions and our schools. And there’s been significant partnership working through the regions to unlock that intellectual capital that is available there and to help it to grow. That should reap benefits in terms of aligning the work of our universities and schools in education.

There are other aspects, such as leadership development. We’ve got significant joint working going on across the four regions, which is now impacting on every school in Wales, from middle leaders and senior leaders, from the whole range of programmes that have been co-designed, and, had we not been in this position, there would be no benefits, either quality benefits or efficiency benefits, from that. We’d continue with the fragmentation that was the legacy throughout my headship, which goes back a couple of generations now.

Well, yes, and there are also questions about the fragmented nature of the consortia themselves, but I'll leave those for now.

I just wanted to ask as well, on the amount of money that you get from the local authorities themselves—because, of course, you are creatures of local authorities—how the figure is determined. Is that something you have any control over in terms of setting budgets? You know, do you ask and it is given unto you, or are you just given a figure, or—? Do you know how it's determined?

In our region, it’s the usual local authority process. We've got the—

We’ve got the six local authorities working together as a joint committee, and we’ve got the six chief executives as well coming together and meeting, and advising the portfolio members, or working with the portfolio members. It aligns to what the settlement for the local authorities is in that particular year, and we are treated, then, as any other service within those local authorities. It’s determined by priority, and the level of funding that we get then, you know, usually reflects the settlements that the local authorities have.

Okay, so, it’s maths rather than individual people need in a given area, or even people numbers. I suppose that is the usual, isn’t it?

I was just going to say that it's based on the IBAs. So, it's proportionate. Each local authority then would pay a percentage based on those figures. But I have to say that the way that the resources are used operationally is more aligned to school need. So, the money, the quantum that comes in in the first place, then, it's a collective effort so that we can build resilience into the system so that the schools that are in crisis, perhaps, are the ones that will benefit more in that particular year. So, it's not divvied up. It comes in in a quantum, but it goes out according to need.

And the quantum is just a bit of algebra, basically. We heard in a previous session that the IBA itself is just a sort of rule of thumb; it's not anything that is stuck to. So, when you talk about a percentage, a percentage, do you happen to know whether you get a percentage of the IBA figure or the amount that's actually earmarked for schools by the local authority in a given year?

11:00

Can I just come back to you on the point you were making there—

—on the decision making on the level of funding? It is—you know, there is—. We've had to present papers to the chief executives and to the members on the service, what are the range of things that we offer to schools, so they're very, very clear as a service that feeds all the local authorities where the funding is going in those services. They then come to a collective decision on how they want to fund the service to ensure that they get the quality they need to improve the deal for learners in their own schools. So, there is—. It's far more than just an algebraic equation that decides.

Well, obviously, not all local authorities are prepared to fund their consortia at the moment. I'm sorry to target you particularly.

On that point, you may be aware that I'm in an interim role in ERW at the moment, working on a reform programme with the local authorities. The way it works in ERW is that a decision was taken some years ago that a quantum of £250,000 would be allocated to fund the regional service from the local authorities. That's then determined, per authority, on pupil level annual school census numbers, and it varies from 18,000 for Ceredigion to the largest authority, Swansea, at 69,000. That's the way that works. We're in a reform process to actually move to a position where we have more security than that.

Ie. So, medraf ofyn mwy am hwnna rŵan. Felly, yn eich ardal chi, mae mwy o'r gwaith gwella yn digwydd trwy’r awdurdodau lleol eu hunain.

Yes. I want to ask a little more about that. So, in your area, more of the improvement work happens through the local authorities themselves.

Mae cyflogi ymgynghorwyr her yn digwydd ar lefel leol, ond mae'r ymrwymiad ar gyfer eu datblygiad a’u cysoni a safoni’r gwaith ar lefel rhanbarthol, ac mae hwnna’n datblygu. Ond, ar lefel leol, mae maint sylweddol o’r gwaith yn digwydd. Ond hefyd, allan o’r arian grant, rŷn ni’n ariannu rolau arweiniol ar themâu penodol er mwyn hwyluso beth sydd yn gallu gweithio ar lefel rhanbarthol. Fel roeddwn i’n ei ddweud, rŷn ni’n mynd trwy broses o ddiwygio ar hyn o bryd.

The employment of challenge advisers happens at a local level. There is a commitment for their development and the standardisation of work at a regional level, and that is developing. But it's at that local level that a great amount of the work happens. But also, out of the grant funding, we do fund leadership roles on particular themes in order to facilitate what can work at a regional level. And, as I said, we are going through a reform process at the moment.

Those are all my questions, I think. I'll come in with some others later on, if you don't mind.

What do the consortia believe is the Welsh Government’s rationale for channelling approximately £150 million-worth of school improvement grant funding each year via the regional consortia?

I think you've got—. If you look at our funding streams, quite clearly, we've—. In Suzy Davies's question, we touched on the core funding from the local authorities, and, in general, we use that money to improve the quality of our schools in the here and now. The funding we get from Welsh Government are grants and with strict conditions on what we are expected to deliver against those grants. We have to produce business plans clearly against those; we've got to report quarterly to Welsh Government. But also we've got to share those plans with our local authorities within the region.

So, the clear rationale, as I can see it, is, and I think—. And we were listening in to the previous conversation that you had, as well, with the WLGA members. Working in the here and now is the core, but, when the Minister then has the reform journey, as we've got in education now, it's targeted to enable schools to get extra capacity to move the reform journey forward. So, although it looks a significant amount of money, I think, collectively, here around the table, when we get that funding, the key question for us is: how do we get that money into schools as early as possible, as quickly as possible, adhering to the conditions that Welsh Government puts against that money?

I think as well—. I think one of the key areas for us is to facilitate, and we are quite clear that not one individual school can move the reform journey on its own—it's got to be a collective; we've got to work together. We've got a key role, then, in helping schools to collaborate, work together, helping schools to find where the best practice is, to be clear then to maximise the money that comes from Welsh Government, ensuring that teachers benefit from the professional learning that comes with it, but, more importantly, that, in due course, then, it becomes mainstream and then our learners in schools actually get the benefit in the medium to longer term.

11:05

So, if the Minister comes out with a new initiative and sends funding across, what are the example timescales from when you can actually get that money into that initiative being implemented?

Do you want me to take that? I think what's helped that process enormously from our perspective is the clarity within the national mission document. So, it gives us a very clear idea of where we are aiming for, collectively—

—so we know what we need to deliver. The timescales have improved over time. We are—

From the new initiative being, say, announced today and the funding sent across fairly quickly, how long would it take before that actual initiative is then, through you—

Shall we let Debbie answer, and then I'll bring you in for a supplementary? Can you not interrupt, please, Janet? Go on.

So, if I give you an example, it's probably easier. So, there are around about 58 lines in the current grant funding model, although they come under one umbrella. So, an example might be coding clubs. So, coding clubs have been a theme right throughout the national mission document and they were funded upfront to deliver on a cluster model. We would have received that funding within our funding terms and conditions document around about April or May of last year. But what systematically happens through the year is that some additional funding is released as the year goes on. And because the structures and systems are set up in each of the regions to deliver coding clubs, as that funding comes in, we're able to facilitate that very swiftly into the school system, because schools are already letting us know that they want to be part of that. So, the coding clubs are an example of that type of funding methodology.

I think, as time has gone on, over the last six years, certainly within the south-east, the delivery models and mechanisms and structures that we have at regional level now are, I would say, well developed. So, as funding comes in, I know exactly what I'm commissioned to deliver and in partnership with my local authorities. So, as and when funding is released, we're able to facilitate that into the system, but timescales do vary. They do vary.

Months. I think it's difficult to put a figure, because there are so many different streams, and I think, in an ideal world, we would want to know upfront, but I'm a realist and we have to make the most efficient use of the resources that we get into the system for schools.

I'll leave it, because it was an example I wanted to pursue. I'll do it outside. Thanks.

To what extent is then this the most effective and efficient method of distributing this funding to improving pupil outcomes in schools?

Sorry, can you repeat the question?

Yes, okay. To what extent is this the most effective and efficient method of distributing this funding to improving pupil outcomes in schools?

I'll start. I think it comes back to the tail end of my previous response. I think if the systems and structures are very clear, if the governance arrangements are very clear at regional level, if all partners, including school leaders and governors have a transparent view of what the funding is for, where it's going, what the delegation rate is, and, most importantly, what the outcomes are going to be, what the impact of that is going to be, I think that funding methodology works well. Where it doesn't work so well is where it lacks clarity of what the outcomes and impact need to be. And, over time, that has decreased because our business plans go through quite hefty scrutiny at local level and national level. So, from where I sit now, today, those funding models and mechanisms are not agreed by EAS, they're agreed by my local authorities, by cabinet members, and I believe that's the right thing to do. 

11:10

Just a quick point as well, we get the grant at the beginning—. If it's at the beginning of the year, as Debbie was saying, we've got the mechanisms. If something comes in midway through a financial year, it comes with conditions, but we've got to discuss with the schools what's the best way that this can be used. It's not us getting the money and dumping it, basically—that's a very technical word—on schools, but basically working with schools: what's the best way for this to be used? Is it at individual school level, is it collectively, or do we use lead schools, which can—? So, it's basically, then, through negotiation and discussion with our partners in schools to say, 'Well, what's the best way that this can be used?' And that—. You asked—. In response to your previous question as well, it depends on the preferred methodology there. That may take a bit more time than others, depending on the issue that we're actually facing, really.

Oh, thank you, Chair. How frequently, then, in those discussions with schools about how to efficiently use some fairly last-minute money, do you get the response, 'Well, actually, it's too late to do anything with this'? We can always spend, I know, but spending well is what I'm talking about. 

I was going to say, as part of our governance arrangements and partnerships with schools, we meet very regularly with schools. We've got delegate headship groups, we've got associate heads groups, so we have frequent discussions about what is planned and what is going to happen with any funding streams that we get mid-year. And I suppose—. We've got the mechanisms operationally as well to enable schools to use—. For example, we've got school improvement groups, we've got cluster models, so that money can be used quite effectively at whatever point of the year it comes in. 

Could I just say that wish list is facilitated helpfully by having the national mission? We are not in a position of swaying back and fore; there is a clear journey up to 2021. Everybody knows what those priorities are, and, if there is resource available, even at fairly short notice, it's on something they're already committed to. There are no surprises in the system. I think that's probably the basis of it, and I think that's helpful. Funding comes to help bolster things when it comes. 

For example, we've set up—[Inaudible.]—cluster mechanism of working. We've got the ALN transformation, we've got the new curriculum coming on board, we've got work with looked-after children—clusters of schools working together. What schools are telling us all the time—. To differentiate between the core, which is improving the here and now, what the grant does is buy time. So, it allows, then, time for teachers—teachers are going to want time to think, time to prepare and time to get ready. So, funding coming in—. As Geraint was saying and Debbie was saying, we've got a very clear—. We've got a clear reform journey path that schools and ourselves need to implement together. So, that funding always is very useful. Late in the day is never helpful, we all appreciate that, but, because we've got the mechanisms and a clear path, that, then, is actually very useful for schools, headteachers, to buy time to really then put the next steps of the reform journey forward. 

How do the consortia use the element of the grant funding that they're responsible for distributing on behalf of the Welsh Government—the regional school improvement grant, which is not delegated to schools?

I think it's a lot like I just responded in the previous answer, really. It's the same—. It's the mechanism. It is delegated to schools, significant—

Yes. I think the notion—you know, the—. It comes to the regions, but it comes to the regions for us then to help schools in the different ways that we've illustrated before to move the reform journey forward. It's got to reach the teacher in the classroom to make a difference. 

So, we want to use that money as well, because—. What we're trying to set up are these collaboratives, sharing the best practice, so that money, then, is either sent to clusters or, where we put a professional learning offer forward for our staff in schools, it's there really—you know, more money at the classroom level, at school level. It's really, then, as I was saying earlier, that schools want time to think, time to reflect, because managing the here and now and managing change is a complex process. 

11:15

Can I just pick up on that as well? You will see that the delegation rates, I believe, are increasing all the time, particularly for that element of the grant income that we receive. And the question I think that we would also ask first is: how much can we passport out the door directly to schools for them to make the decisions on how best to meet their local needs? But also, some of the grants do require the region to retain some of that funding for nominated lead people. So, some of that is written into the grant terms and conditions. An example of that would be a lead for looked-after children, a lead for equity in well-being or PDG. In addition to that, some of the previous grants were around the specialist advisers for the new GCSE reform programme. So, some of the funding that's retained is actually dictated at source, and rightly so, I believe, because you do need an element to facilitate exactly what Arwyn has just described.   

And then a specific question to you now, Geraint: is there any particular reason why ERW delegates a lower proportion—84 per cent—of the regional consortia school improvement grant to schools than the other consortia? Because I think that's come up at various different things—that there's inconsistencies between how the consortia work and how they delegate. 

You'll be aware of the nature of local authority contributions and grant spend in each of the regions. In ERW, we notionally would have a £250,000 local authority contribution, which is a few million less than some other regions, because of the way the model developed in ERW. What then happens, for example, is that there is funding for leadership programmes. ERW, from the grant, has to fund somebody to lead on leadership, professional learning and other aspects. So, many of what would be considered core functions of the other three regions are actually funded through grant in ERW because of the legacy of where we are. That's part of the ongoing reform journey that ERW is committed to, so that we get to a point where there is a better balance between core funding and grant funding, so that schools receive more of the delegated funding. The funding as well is distributed via the local authorities, and there's differentiated delegation there. So, the two things in combination create the sort of variance you're referring to.     

So, in terms of that variance, which is quite stark, really, isn't it, and you've mentioned the reform journey, can you say in more concrete terms what plans are in place to actually get ERW working along the same lines as the other consortia? 

Right. The plans, essentially, are around developing a clarity of purpose between the local authority and the regional service, a limited scale regional service that delivers expert leadership around a range of functions, which essentially are around getting the new curriculum to bed, professional learning, leadership development and the support needed for schools that either self-identify or are being identified as struggling. That becomes the regional function, and the local authority function, then, is around the accountability for standards within their local authority, and we need to secure consistency there. Teachers and pupils, wherever they are in Wales, are entitled to a similar deal, and that commitment has been expressed in the joint committee for moving ahead with a model that creates that shared accountability but has a clear focus and purpose for ERW's activities. And then, the funding needs to move over a period of time to a position where it is able to sustain the body that is there to deliver on behalf of the six authorities—that it's able to do that and release grant at the same rate as you'd reasonably expect happens across the other regions.  

So, are you able to give us some sort of idea of timescale by when we can expect there to be a consistent offer for learners in your area that is on a par with the other consortia? 

The joint committee on 8 February approved a reform programme to be put in place, and the intention is that, as we work through the summer term, that'll be in place for new operation in September, with a clarity around every bit that goes with that. And that has been developed jointly—there were eight, nine weekly meetings between the directors, or the chief officers, of each authority, and myself and colleagues, and around about 300 headteachers have been part of conversations around building it. And it's got to the point, having had that approval, where we now need to see it work its way through into implementation.

11:20

You caught the end of it. Okay. There was a big debate about core budgets and the process for allocating core budgets. Have you got views you'd like to express on how core budgets are allocated to schools and whether that's effective?

If you're looking at our schools, they're not all uniform, are they? They're vastly different from—. Here in Cardiff, you've got large, urban comprehensives. In Siân's area, there are some very small, rural schools. So, the needs of the schools are different in the first place. And if you're looking at the delegation rates of the local authorities, they go from Powys, which is huge and rural, to Cardiff, and that's the spread, I think; there's a spread of about 10 per cent, 15 per cent. And I think that what's been held centrally to support the schools we need to see, to have that debate around the school budget—it's a complement to what the schools get. So, there are some centrally held services by the local authority, and we are part of those services, but also then what goes down to individual school level.

What we've got to be really careful to get the balance right is—. There has been discussion and talk around direct funding from central Government to individual schools. But what you're doing in some of those small and very small schools—and we have a lot of those in Wales—is you're increasing the bureaucracy and the administration on the leadership team in some very small institutions. And we are taking them away then from the main job that they have to do, which is to improve teaching and learning. So, I think that debate has got to be, in increasing delegation, are we increasing the bureaucracy and admin at that local level? Is that manageable in some of our smaller institutions, against the complement of central service? So, getting that balance at present is being determined locally, and I think that debate at a local level is important, because we've got some very affluent schools, and we've got schools as well in areas of high need and high poverty. So, we've got to reflect that in the funding formula.

One of the things the Minister said was that she'd be happy to look at the funding formula if it was led by local authorities and they were happy to propose something different. Would you be involved with that dialogue?

No. Our function is the school improvement function. The dialogue regarding setting school budgets—. There's a budget forum in each one of the local authorities, so the debate and discussion there happens between local members, local officers and their headteachers usually.

I believe that that's a local authority function.

And I wouldn't feel comfortable in having views outside of my local authorities.

That's fair. So, let's just ask a simple question: have schools got enough in their core budgets to deliver the Welsh Government's priorities?

Good question. I think, whatever the budget settlement is, we'd all want more—that's the nature of ourselves in any services or any schools. But the job of leaders is to manage what we've got and to work more effectively. I think what we are seeing more and more is schools working together and using their own resources. I'm not talking the pounds and the pennies; it's using, then, their own expertise to share. And the money then goes—. The impact of it is seen far wider than it has been. So, there is more to it than—. You can increase the spend, but the impact of the spend is the key thing, and getting schools to share, getting schools to collaborate, I think we can see more value in the system. On the debate around, 'Is there enough money?', I think the question should be, 'Is there enough impact in the system?', rather than the money question.  

11:25

I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, but does anybody want to add anything else to that?

I just want to say that it's about leadership and the management of the schools, and the governing body, in how those resources are managed. We'd all like some more money—everybody would. You know, even as a householder, you would prefer to have more money in your pocket. But it's about how those resources are used effectively to make that impact, so that the teaching and learning is as good as it can be in the schools.

Just on that point, you mentioned core funding. I don't think that we can ignore some of the grant funding that's also coming to schools. I think I would echo the point that Esther just made, where I see that schools are accelerating through the reform agenda and schools that are seeing better outcomes for learners, not just at the end of a key stage but in those interim year groups. This is where leadership and governance is strong, where school leaders are creative and resourceful. But, in saying that, all school leaders would say that there isn't enough funding in their current budgets, but it is about working within the envelope that we have. I'd also say that it is also about equipping the teachers within the system to enable them to—. I think Arwyn used the term 'the here and now', but we are investing in the future, and I don't think that we can lose sight of that either.  

I think the key thing is that we are at a point of rapid reform, which is ongoing. There's no let-up for the next while. We've got to see that through. We are also in a change of model of school improvement from schools having large local authority advisory teams 15 years ago—essentially, it was a feeding system—to a point where schools themselves are empowered to provide leadership both within their institution and across institutions. I think that by working towards increased delegation, what we're essentially doing is working with those who can to support everybody else, and to get to a point where the budgets are there, and they need to be sustainable budgets at that point, where a school can confidently have overcapacity so that it knows that, for the next few years, it is able to offer support in a specialist area. That's the shift that we're now undergoing across Wales, but it will be embedded as we move on.

The other bit is around grant. Essentially, schools have both a day job and the reform job. Ultimately, it needs to become the same thing. I think the discussion around accountability models for schools is a crucial part of that as well. Schools tend to hold on to doing what they always did if they are accountable for what they always did and notionally accountable for something new. I think the discussion around that is an important part of this as well, so that schools can have the confidence to say, 'This is our stall, this is what we are doing, and this is how we will change'.

Just one point, when I talk to school leaders in the south-east, I don't want to misrepresent them but much of their questions and much of their concern and anxiety is centred around knowing what's coming and having the ability to enable their own school sector to meet those demands. So, it's the surety and sustainability of some of that, so that they are able to plan efficiently. 

If we could have longer indicative funding, because everything is done on an annual basis—. Back to the response to your question as well, if there was a three-year indicative budget of planning where we need to be going, we've all then got sight of the wider picture—that's from school level all the way through the system. So, it makes the wider planning and the financial planning to match the reform journey and improving, as I keep saying, the here and now. We've got a clearer sight, then, of what needs to be done over an extended period as well.

Just to say, I completely agree with you on your last point. I just don't want to lose sight of that connection between impact and funding, which came up in Hefin's last questions there. Bearing in mind that you have all existed for a while now, and we've had a long period of 'here and now', were you happy with the results of the most recent Estyn report, where we still have no primary schools that are overall 'excellent' and a huge range between 'excellent' and really not excellent at all in the secondary sector? Where's the impact of the funding? 

11:30

If you're looking at the Estyn annual report—

That's what you're referring to, is it? Well, if Estyn keep measuring schools in the way they're actually measuring, schools can improve by 10 per cent, but you'll always get that 40 per cent that Meilyr Rowlands was reporting, because the school performance then is divided into quartiles. So, whatever the number, you always have the bottom quartile, you always have the top quartile. So, you'll always come to that view.

I think we need other ways then of capturing impact. Yes, you've got the school attainment, but I think we're moving in to—. And you've had these discussions as well. We're looking at children's well-being. I think that's a significant area that we should be trying to capture. We should be looking at wider measures of capturing success within the system. 

Okay, well, that's about the future. I've asked my question anyway, and I'm not sure I'm going to get an answer on it completely. I suppose it goes to targeting to one extent. You've all got your regions. You've got to know whether schools are in difficulty or where leaders are in difficulty, and yet we're not seeing the work that you've put in on that necessarily reflected in that Estyn report. Anyway—. But I want to connect this to funding, I don't want to go off piste too much. Thank you. 

Okay, well we've got some questions now on unhypothecated versus targeted funding from Siân. 

Dŷn ni wedi cyffwrdd ar ychydig o hyn yn barod, ond a oes gennych chi farn ynglŷn â beth ydy'r system orau i gael yr arian i'r ysgolion? Ai drwy grantiau penodol, neu drwy roi mwy mewn i'r gyllideb graidd, yn benodol rŵan o ran gwella safonau?

We have touched on a bit of this already, but do you have a view as to what is the best system of getting the money to the schools? Is it through specific grants, or is it by putting more into the core budget, especially now in terms of improving standards?

Dwi'n meddwl ein bod ni wedi cyfeirio ychydig bach ato fo yn gynharach, ond do? Pwrpas yr amodau o gwmpas y grantiau a chael grantiau ydy gwneud yn siŵr bod blaengareddau newydd yn cael eu sefydlu, gwneud yn siŵr bod pawb wedyn efo amodau sydd yn cyd-fynd efo'r blaengareddau yna, a'u pwrpas yn y pen draw ydy bod yr arian yna yn symud i arian craidd, oherwydd mae'n rhaid i'r flaengaredd yna fod yn rhan o waith bob dydd yr ysgol. Pan dŷn ni'n trafod y grantiau dŷn ni'n eu trafod yn fan hyn rŵan, bydd nifer fawr o'r grantiau yna yn cael eu prif lifo i mewn i'r arian craidd dros gyfnod o amser wrth i'r blaengareddau newydd a'r daith ddiwygio gael eu sefydlu. Felly, mae o'n ffordd, fel o'n i'n cyfeirio ato yn gynharach, i brynu amser i'r sefydliadau, i'r ysgolion ac i athrawon i gael y datblygiad proffesiynol i roi'r newidiadau mewn lle, ac unwaith bod y newidiadau wedi cael eu rhoi mewn lle, yna mae'r ffynhonnell yna wedyn yn mynd i'r craidd fel rhan o'r craidd yn cael ei ddatblygu. 

I think we touched on this earlier, didn't we? The purpose of the grants and the conditions around those grants is to ensure that new initiatives are put in place, to ensure that everyone then has certain conditions that go hand in hand with those initiatives, and the purpose eventually is that should move into core funding, because that initiative should become part of the core work of schools. When we're discussing the grants we're discussing here now, many of those grants will be mainstreamed into core budgets over a period of time as those new initiatives and the reform agenda are mainstreamed. So, it's a way, as I suggested earlier, of buying time for the institutions, the schools and the teachers to have the necessary professional development to put those changes in place, and once those changes are in place, then that funding source moves to the core funding as that core is developed. 

Ond a ydy'r un lefel o arian yn cyrraedd y craidd? Mae hynny'n gwestiwn arall, ond ydy? Dyna sydd yn tueddu i ddigwydd. Mae'r grantiau yna yn mynd yn llai wrth iddyn nhw fynd i mewn wedyn i'r craidd, a phetaen nhw yna o'r cychwyn yn y craidd, efallai byddai'r toriad yna ddim yn digwydd. Hefyd, mae yna fiwrocratiaeth o gwmpas gweinyddu'r grantiau yma. Dŷn ni wedi clywed bore yma fod rhwng 5 a 10 y cant o grant yn cael ei wario ar fiwrocratiaeth wrth ei weinyddu fo. 

But does the same level of funding reach the core? That is another question, isn't it? That's what tends to happen. Those grants become smaller as they go into the core funding, and if they were there initially in the core, perhaps that cut wouldn't happen. Also, there is bureaucracy around administering these grants. We've heard this morning that between 5 and 10 per cent of a grant is spent on the bureaucracy of administering it. 

Dwi ddim yn siŵr o ble roedd y ffigwr yna'n dod. Yn amlwg, dwi'n ei ffeindio hi'n anodd i weld a dallt cyd-destun y ffigwr yna. Roeddwn i'n gwrando ar y drafodaeth ar arian y cyfnod sylfaen, er enghraifft. Yr arian ar gyfer plant sydd yn cael cinio yn rhad ac am ddim, mae'r grantiau hynny'n ein cyrraedd ni ac maen nhw'n mynd yn syth allan i ysgolion. Felly, proses weinyddol sydd wedi cael ei hen sefydlu ydy honno, felly dwi ddim yn siŵr lle mae'r ganran—. Mae honno i mi yn swnio'n uchel ofnadwy, y ganran weinyddol. Dwi ddim yn gallu adnabod honno. 

I'm not sure where that figure came from. Clearly, I find it difficult to understand the context of that figure. I listened to the discussion on funding for the foundation phase, for example. The funding for children who have free school meals, those grants come to us and they're delivered immediately to the schools. So, that's a well-established administrative process, so I'm not sure where that very high percentage—. That percentage for administrative costs sounds very high to me. I can't identify that myself. 

Ie, ond dwi ddim yn credu bod o'n cyfeirio'n benodol at y cyfnod sylfaen, y 5 i 10 y cant yma. Roedden nhw'n sôn yn gyffredinol fod gweinyddu grantiau yn costio hynny. Mi oedd yna sôn wedyn am £5 miliwn, onid oedd, o ryw hen astudiaeth neu astudiaeth gynt? Ond, wrth gwrs byddech chi'n licio cael yr arian yn mynd drwyddoch chi, achos bydd gennych chi well gafael ar beth sy'n digwydd iddo fo. Ond, o safbwynt llywodraeth leol, maen nhw'n dweud eu bod nhw angen cael yr ymddiriedaeth yna eu bod nhw'n mynd i'w ddefnyddio fo yn y ffordd mae'r Llywodraeth yn dymuno iddo fo gael ei wario. Ac os oes yna ffordd o dynhau cyllideb drwy wneud hynny, onid ydy hi'n well i wneud hynny?

I don't think it refers directly to the foundation phase, that 5 to 10 per cent. There was talk in general that administering the grants costs that. There was talk then about £5 million, wasn't there, from some older study or historic study? But, of course, you would like to have the money going through you as a consortium, because you will have a better grip on what's happening to it. But, in terms of local government, they say that they need to have that trust that they are going to be using it in the way that the Government wants it to be spent. And if there is a way of tightening the budget by doing that, isn't it better to do so? 

11:35

I think there's a risk, if it was included and it went directly to schools, then you would not have that collaborative working that we've built up over a number of years, as you so rightly say. It's about a self-improving system so that we grow the professional development from the ground up rather than top down. So, if it went into schools directly, then the sum of money that each school would get would be quite small, and there wouldn't be that quality assurance that it would be spent on the priorities as whatever grant we're talking about would actually be saying. So, there would be risks attached to it.

Finally, just on the point you raise, I think there's a balance. I think, as with everything we've spoken about today, there's a balance that needs to be struck. I think we do need, and rightly so, to trust school leaders and their governing bodies to be able to identify the right priorities for this school, and have the flexibility to be able to utilise the resource that they have to enable them to meet those priorities. But, equally, the balance on the other side of it is that schools will also need to be able to access high-quality professional learning, and be able to link directly into HEIs, have routes into accredited learning, and I think that's where the balance is to be struck. I don't think that we can say it's either/or. I also think that, particularly, it's fair to say from nearly all of us, that local authorities are completely in the loop with the current allocation, and in fact they make the decisions about where the current allocation goes. Again, I would feel I would be stepping over a line that isn't my remit around whether it's in the core funding or not, but from where we all sit, we want schools to use that funding in the best way, and to make sure it gets to them. That's the biggest, most important thing for me.

Y £100 miliwn yma sydd wedi cael ei roi gan y Llywodraeth yn benodol ar gyfer codi safonau, ac mae hwnna yn mynd drwy system grantiau'r consortia. Onid oes yna berygl y bydd rhan o hwnna yn cael ei golli wrth iddo fo fynd o'r Llywodraeth i'r consortia, i—? Dwi'n cymryd ei fod o'n mynd i lywodraeth leol yn hytrach nac yn syth i'r ysgol, so mae o'n mynd fel yna yn hytrach na mynd yn uniongyrchol. Mae arian yn bownd o fod yn cael ei golli yn y system yna, pan fydd gennych chi haenau gwahanol.

This £100 million that has been given by the Government specifically for raising standards, and that goes via the consortia's grant system. Isn't there a danger that part of that will be lost as it goes from Government to the consortia, to—? I take it that it goes to local government rather than straight to the schools, so it goes in a squiggle rather than going directly to schools. Money must be lost in that system when you have different tiers.

Y grant mwyaf sylweddol rŷn ni wedi'i gael yn ddiweddar oedd y rhaglen yma sydd gyda ni hefyd yn rhedeg i'r flwyddyn nesaf o ran dysgu proffesiynol. Cyrhaeddodd y swm o fewn y rhanbarth ac mae e 100 y cant yn cael ei ddosbarthu—dim byd yn cael ei gymryd o fewn y rhanbarth na'r awdurdod lleol. Mae'r cyfan yn mynd i ysgolion ac mae nifer cynyddol o grantiau yn dangos y patrymau hynny. Yr unig beth sydd angen ei gadw, weithiau, yw gwneud yn siŵr bod yna rywun yno ar gael i ddarparu beth yw pwrpas y grant. Maen nhw'n derbyn grant i wneud gweithgaredd, ond mae eisiau rhywun i allu trefnu bod gweithgaredd i'w wneud, oni bai mai'r ysgolion eu hunain sy'n ei wneud e. Yn gynyddol, clystyrau o ysgolion sy'n gwneud.

The most substantial grant that we've received recently was this programme that we have running into next year on professional development. That funding came into the region and 100 per cent is distributed—nothing is taken regionally or within the local authority. It's all provided to schools and there are an increasing number of grants displaying those same patterns. What you need to retain on occasion is to make sure that there is someone available to provide the purpose of the grant. They receive the grant for certain activities, but someone needs to ensure that that activity is in place, unless the schools do it themselves. Increasingly, it's clusters of schools.

Mae'n rhaid inni gofio bod amodau tyn yn mynd efo'r grantiau yma. Dŷn ni ddim yn gallu—. Mae yna argraff allan, o bosibl, fod y grantiau yma yn ein cyrraedd ni a'n bod ni'n cael gwneud fel dŷn ni'n dymuno efo nhw, ond mae yna amodau tyn iawn efo'r grantiau. Dŷn ni hefyd yn gorfod rhoi ein cynlluniau busnes i fynd efo'r grantiau i'r Llywodraeth, a dŷn ni'n cael ein dal yn atebol i wneud yn siŵr bod y gwariant yn cyrraedd lle y dylai fo i wneud beth bynnag ydy'r amodau sy'n mynd efo'r llinell benodol yn y grant.

We must remember that there are also tight conditions related to these grants. We can't—. There is an impression out there that these grants get to us and we can do as we choose with them, but there are very strict conditions related to these grants. We also have to provide business plans to the Government in relation to these grants, and we are held to account in order to ensure that that expenditure is made where it should be, whatever conditions are attached to that particular line within the grant.

We've got some questions now from Dawn on the relationship with the local authorities.

Thank you, Chair. We heard, Geraint, you talk about what was happening in your area, but how generally effective is the current working relationship between local authorities and the consortia? Does it vary? Accepting what you were telling us about the arrangements in your area, does it generally vary across the country?

Can I start there, because I've recently—? Until December, I was actually director of Rhondda Cynon Taf, director of education in Rhondda Cynon Taf. I retired, and unfortunately Louise has gone off sick, so I've been asked to come in on a temporary basis. So, I think the relationship with the local authorities—I know in central south, and I think it's true of the other regional organisations as well—it was shaped and established very much as a partnership with the directors of education at that time. It's evolved over time.

There are strict governance accountability streams that we work together within and, I think, if you look at purely school improvement services, they have to work in partnership with other local authority services, because children and young people don't exist in a vacuum. There's children's services, for example, you've got attendance and well-being, ALN services—they all contribute to the school improvement agenda, so that relationship with local authorities is crucial.

Having said that, it probably varies between regions, it varies between consortia and local authorities. But every effort is made, through the governance structures, to make that relationship as good as it can be. One of the key services for me is, for example—. We've talked about good leadership and management in our schools, which is what, ultimately, makes the difference. Human resources services back in local authorities often have a part to play, working in tandem with challenge advisors when there are schools in crisis. So, I would say that that partnership is essential. 

11:40

Can I just say—? There are governance arrangements that make the local authorities, essentially—they are in the driving seat around that—but there are other aspects. In ERW, for example, the service level agreements around HR, finance, democratic services, legal, all of those are SLAs with the local authorities—with a range of local authorities. So then, everybody has a finger in the pie, in a sense, around it.

Historically, the model was established, I think, not necessarily expecting the scale of operation around the reform journey that we now have, which is why it is being tackled to move on to being more fit for purpose for what is coming at us, which is quite challenging.

So, have some local authorities been more resistant than others? [Laughter.] I'll take that as 'yes'.

Local authorities, they're all in a different position. There's no hiding—you've had the figures around local authority contributions, and you'll be aware there's an anomaly in ERW that, inevitably, we need to be working on.

In general, we benefit from strong cross-party political leadership, and they see education as the priority. So, the model then has got to work, and as Esther was describing, it's a true partnership then, and we would then work very closely with strong leadership from the directors. Strong working relationships can make any model work if they're clear on what they're trying to achieve, and I think, through transparency and dialogue, it's political leaders that are clear, supported by the chief executives and the officers, that will allow our working relationship then to do the right thing, which is to concentrate on improving schools. So, I think it's the quality of those relationships that's really key.

Ie, roeddwn i jest eisiau mynd â'r peth dipyn bach yn uwch, mewn ffordd, o ran lefel y drafodaeth. Petai gennym ni awdurdodau lleol oedd tipyn yn fwy eu maint, a fyddai angen wedyn haen y consortia—yr haen ychwanegol yma sydd yn gallu creu dryswch ac, efallai, yn costio mwy?

I just want to take it a little higher in terms of the level of the discussion. If we had local authorities that were bigger in size, would you need that consortia tier—that additional tier that can confuse people and, maybe, costs more?

Shall I pick that up? I think it goes back to the very first question that we were asked when we came in the room: the benefits. I've got a mix of size of local authorities within the region in which I work and, actually, the costs over time for the delivery of the services—because the capacity is being built within the school workforce now—actually has decreased over time. So, larger local authorities would still be looking for efficiencies in their services and, I think, obviously, that would be a question that you would have to ask your local authorities, but it picked up on your question that the test always comes when things don't go quite as planned and expected—for example, maybe with some outcomes around key stage 4. And any partnership is only as good as the trust, and I think, certainly from the south-east region, you had one of the council leaders in here—you had Anthony Hunt in here before us—and, I think, over time, particularly in south-east Wales, that relationship has matured. I think all council leaders, local members, can see the benefits in working together, can see the benefits in the delivery model, but there will always be some issues that come into the system, and the trust and the culture that's been established over time will help us to get through some of those. But I can say, from the region in which I work, there is a strong commitment to regional working, and I've got some large authorities and some smaller authorities.

11:45

But if there were two—. If your area was two local authorities, wouldn't that be better and easier for everybody and cost less?

I'm not sure where the confusion is, to be honest with you. If the relationships are mature and transparent and we're working together and having robust debate, I don't think there's a confusion between who should be doing what. Karen Evans, our lead director—her mantra is, 'There's enough work for everybody; let's sort out who does what.' Having that open and transparent conversation makes everybody's lives easier, because we're clear: this is our ground, this is where the local authority is, this is where we work together.

But do the teachers know—? Do the teachers actually know—all these different people are coming in—who they're actually accountable to? Wouldn't it be simpler if there was a more streamlined set-up?

I think there seems—. Again, you can only speak about your own experience. I think there seems to be a perception that there are not clear roles and responsibilities—

I can only talk about the region in which I work, and the lines are very clear about the roles and responsibilities. We work in absolute partnership with our local authorities. There's no duplication at local authority level. So, school leaders would be well aware of who does what within the system. I'm not saying, obviously—that's what you've heard, but I can only report on what I know.

Yes, it's kind of on that, actually. You mentioned earlier, Arwyn, that you've got very strict conditions on the moneys that are allocated to you and so on, but despite that, we did hear views from the headteachers' unions that there wasn't accountability. They were saying, actually, that confidence is at an all-time low. So, you're saying one thing, the headteachers—it's the point that Siân was making. There's a different perception, probably, depending on where you sit, but I don't know if you've got any views on what the headteachers have said.

If you look at just the end-year accountability, if you take the last financial year's accountability in question, we were inspected by Estyn and the Wales Audit Office, looking at budgets—part of that was budget and value for money. One of our local authorities was inspected. Another had an improvement conference. And we had the Wales Audit Office again more or less looking at—. We are held to account quarterly by Welsh Government on our conditions. We meet the scrutiny of each of the local authorities, where we go through the same process. We've got our own joint committee. I counted 23 times during the last financial year that we were held to account. So, this notion that we're not held to account—. Sometimes you invite us here to be held to account as well. So, this notion that we're not held accountable is—. I think 23 is more than enough.

I would just say, having done a few stints as a headteacher—in this senior local authority role, this year I will have been held to account, I think, more than in my whole life put together, other than at home. [Laughter.] There's an incredible plethora of accountabilities that you have to meet, and—

So, do you think there's actually a lack of awareness, then, about what you're doing, by headteachers?

Possibly, and I suppose the question that I would have is: is that the views of headteachers right across Wales, or is it—?

Yes, and we've met with some of those, and, again, we've continued to do that. I think the accountability, picking up on Geraint's point, is very transparent. The ways in which we're held accountable are public. The minutes of those meetings are on websites; local authority are normally livestreamed. So, I think, possibly, it may be some misunderstanding.

We also meet those unions on a regular basis as well. So, there might be a wider political point there as well.

11:50

Maybe they'll have a direct conversation with you as well. I just wanted to, very briefly, pick up the point you made earlier, Esther, about school improvement, because, again, one of the teaching unions has flagged up with us their concerns about what they perceive as duplication around school improvement. And that was identified by the fact that £11 million for school improvement is given to consortia; £11 million for school improvement is held with the local authority. So, the question that was being raised was, 'Why have you both got responsibility for school improvement?' Or is it the point that you were making, Debbie—this is about you've got very distinct and different responsibilities around school improvement? 

I think school improvement, defining what school improvement is, sits much wider than us as consortia, because it's not just about what goes on in schools, it's what goes on outside schools—as I mentioned some of the services earlier that contribute to that. So, I think it's a partnership. It has to be a partnership. As a director, I would not see it as duplication of work. I was confident in the role that the consortia and the school improvement officers had as part of the consortia, and what I as a director was responsible for. And I think we would all be able to articulate that perhaps slightly differently, because all our organisations are structured slightly differently as well

But I think you're point as well is that there's some learning there for us. If there is this conception out there, we need to be engaging more with teaching unions and the headteacher unions. I can't recognise that £11 million figure, but it's been made up of sums of money somewhere, so I think we need that open and transparent discussion.

But as Esther was saying, it's the definition of school improvement, and I think it would be useful for us, then, to sit down with those unions in our regular meetings and say, 'Let's be open and transparent about what this is about.' I think that's something for us to take back, really.

Local authorities retain the statutory role for school improvement, and we work on their behalf, and it shouldn't be in direct conflict at all. It's certainly isn't in the south-east. So, I think Arwyn has a point around opening up, being more transparent. From our perspective, I don't think there would be any issue or concern with that. We're all trying to achieve the same thing.

It's just that part of the reform journey that ERW is on is around tidying that up, and the question you've raised is something that has been raised by headteachers in the region, and it's part of what we're trying to do to develop a business plan that is absolutely clear about what the region does, what the local authority does, and what schools will do. Because, ultimately, it's not two lots—there are three bits to make all—

Yes. And that clarity is something they'll need to work through, then.

Thank you. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank all of you, on behalf of the committee, for attending? It's been a really useful session. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. But thank you again for your attendance this morning.

4. Papurau i’w Nodi
4. Papers to Note

Item 4, then, is papers to note. There's just one paper to note today, which is a letter from the Minister for Education on the draft additional learning needs code, in response to our letter seeking clarification on a number of points. Are Members happy to note that? 

5. Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42(ix) i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o Weddill y Cyfarfod a'r Cyfarfod Cyfan ar 28 Mawrth
5. Motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to Resolve to Exclude the Public from the Remainder of the Meeting and the Whole Meeting on 28 March

Cynnig:

bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod a'r cyfarfod cyfan ar 28 Mawrth yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(ix).

Motion:

that the committee resolves to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting and the whole meeting on 28 March in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix).

Cynigiwyd y cynnig.

Motion moved.

Item 5, then, is the motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting on 28 March. Are Members content? Thank you.

Derbyniwyd y cynnig.

Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am 11:53.

Motion agreed.

The public part of the meeting ended at 11:53.

The witness has supplied further information: 'The relevant IBAs used in the calculations are the lines: nursery and primary schools teaching and other services; secondary schools teaching and other services; and education administration.'