New senior role created to help schools like Welshpool

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

A senior staff role has been created by Powys County Council’s Education department as part of a response to a scathing report by Welsh education watchdog Estyn.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Finance Panel, councillors and independent lay members received an update on the performance of the 2025/2026 council budget during the first quarter.

As it stood at the end of July, the council was predicting a surplus of just under £2.2 million on its £367 million budget by the end of next March.

Contained within the report was a request from the Education department for a money transfer of £400,000 from the “School Improvement and Attainment Reserve”, known as a virement, to be approved by senior Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors at a Cabinet meeting later this month.

The report said that the money is requested to: “support schools and the Education service to deliver improvements required following the Estyn inspection of the local authority.”

In March, it was revealed that Estyn had found that the council’s Education department was “causing significant concern”. 

Four recommendations had been given to the council to address the problems.

Welshpool High School has also faced a tough summer following its own disappointing Estyn report.

Cllr Danny Bebb (Liberal Democrat – Churchstoke) asked: “What assurance is there that the £400,000 draw down for Estyn-related school improvements will be effective?”

Director of Education, Dr Richard Jones, explained that this sum was not to address site security or school maintenance issues, which is being funded from different sources.

Dr Jones said: “That £400,000 will directly fund activity which responds to the outcome of inspection report, and also supports individual schools that are currently placed in a statutory category.”

He said that the department needed to “strengthen the capacity” and bring in new school improvement advisers.

As part of this move, a new head of service role has been created in the department to deal with Additional Learning Needs (ALN) and school inclusion.

Dr Jones said: “You’ll be aware that Estyn, in their report, speak about the need for us to balance roles and responsibilities at a senior level within education.

“So, by introducing the Head of ALN and Inclusion, we’ll be able to have greater strategic oversight of ALN in the authority.”

Moving on to schools, Dr Jones said: “A school in a statutory category is required to write a Post-Inspection Action Plan (PIAP) which is approved by the local authority and Estyn.

“That PIAP will have resources aligned to each of the actions required to deliver improvement, and this will fund those actions.”

Members noted the report.

The schools that will receive help are:

Ysgol Maesydderwen secondary school in Ystradgynlais – which was put into special measures following an inspection in January.

Welshpool High School – which was put into special measures following an inspection in May.

Machynlleth’s Ysgol Bro Hyddgen all age primary and secondary school – which needs significant improvement following an inspection in November last year.

Brecon High School was judged to need significant improvement following an inspection in November 2018 – a follow-up monitoring visit by Estyn in November 2022 judged that not enough progress had been made to address their original recommendations. Due to this, Estyn put the school into the special measures’ category.