Education chief, Council Leader survive bid to have them ousted

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Labour councillors are standing shoulder to shoulder with their under fire Liberal Democrat colleagues to avert a crisis for the coalition which runs Powys County Council.

At an extraordinary meeting of Powys County Council on Thursday, members of the Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet outlined in a presentation how the council will address the four recommendations that they were given by Estyn after the damning report into Powys education was published last month.

Independent and Conservative councillors had called for the resignations of Liberal Democrat education portfolio holder, Cllr Pete Roberts, and council leader, Cllr James Gibson-Watt, over the report.

They had responded with apologies and an in-depth presentation on how the council will attempt to address Estyn’s concerns.

But calls for Cllr Roberts to “do the honourable thing” continued throughout the tense meeting.

Reform group leader, Cllr Iain McIntosh, changed tack and addressed his comments to deputy council leader, Cllr Matthew Dorrance, who leads the Labour group on Powys council.

Cllr McIntosh said: “Based on what has been presented, I have no confidence in our education portfolio holder, but my final question is to the deputy leader.

“Do you and your colleagues support the current cabinet member for education?”

Cllr Dorrance said: “I would not be sat here if I did not have confidence in this administration. This administration has improved planning services, built new council houses, it has some of the best performance of compliance in housing services (in Wales) and we’ve got a brilliant Children’s Services department.

“This is a collective responsibility administration. We’ve had a damning report from a regulator which we take responsibility for and we’re putting in place a plan to improve and put that right.

“On the whole this is a very good administration that’s delivering on the priorities of the people of Powys and I’m proud to sit here as the deputy leader of it.”

Labour councillors make up the smaller group in the minority ruling administration that has run Powys County Council since the last local election in May 2022.

They have nine councillors who all represents wards in the south of Powys. The Liberal Democrats have 22 councillors.

They are also joined in the coalition by Cllr Jeremy Brignell-Thorp of the Green Party.

Together, they make up 32 of the 68 councillors in Powys.