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The decisions as the council's minutes record them. A plain-language summary follows once it has been written.
RESOLVED That the report be noted.
RESOLVED That the Committee determines whether the Council should adopt a standard, evidence-based approach to teaching reading in all primary schools. This should look at which specific approach be adopted, how teachers will be trained, and how this approach will be monitored. This item will be reviewed by the Committee in February 2026 with a recommendation to Full Council. [Councillor Maureen Bowen was ineligible to vote as she was not present throughout the full debate].
RESOLVED That the Committee: a) Expresses concerns with the asymmetric week and its impact on attendance and educational attainment. b) Asks Full Council to provide a political view and determine whether the Council should support asymmetric weeks.
RESOLVED That the Forward Work Programme be accepted. Councillor Bowen asked for the EJCC minutes to be presented to the Committee. In response, the Chair said that he will try contacting the relevant body who had these minutes and see whether they would consent to having them being public and shared with the Committee.
RESOLVED That the report be endorsed.
RESOLVED That the report be noted.
There were no non-Committee Members wishing to speak.
The following declarations of interest were made in respect of Agenda Item No. 11 - Memorandum of Understanding for The Delivery of Post-16 Education in Pembrokeshire: Councillor Viv Stoddart declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that her daughter worked at Pembrokeshire College. Councillor Bethan Price declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that she was an LA Governor of Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi and her grandchildren attend the school. Councillor Huw Murphy declared a personal interest in respect of Agenda Item No. 8 - Reading Standards Including for the Foundation Phase by virtue of the fact that he was a Governor at Ysgol Bro Preseli. The following declarations of interest were made in respect of Agenda Item No. 9 - Asymmetric Schools: Councillor Maureen Bowen declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that her partner worked at Ysgol Harri Tudur. Councillor Nick Neumann declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that he was an LA Governor of Broad Haven School.
Councillor Murphy noted that there were a few typos in the Minutes of the Meeting of the 10th April 2025 as ‘Ysgol Cleddau’ should be to ‘Ysgol Clydau’ on pages 17 and 33 of the agenda pack, ‘Ysgol Elwswrw’ should be ‘Ysgol Eglwyswrw’ of page 18 and ‘live’ should be ‘life’ on page 20. Subject to the above amendments, Councillor Rhys Jordan Moved that the Minutes of the Meeting held on the 10th April 2025 be approved as a correct record; Seconded by Councillor David Howlett. The vote, undertaken by way of a show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 10 April 2025 be approved as a correct record, subject to the following amendments: · ‘Ysgol Cleddau’ be changed to ‘Ysgol Clydau’ of pages 17 and 33 · ‘Ysgol Elwswrw’ be changed to ‘Ysgol Eglwyswrw’ of page 18 · ‘Live be changed to ‘life’ on page 20 Regarding the Minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting held on the 15th May 2025, Councillor Murphy noted that the comment made by the Chief Officer for School Resource & Governance regarding the need to hire at least one additional staff member to assess the data that Cabinet resolved to collect was missing from the Minutes. He stated that this was why the Call-In was upheld. Councillor Howlett concurred with this. Councillor Rhys Jordan Moved that the Minutes of the Meeting held on the 14th May 2025 be not approved and resubmitted to the following meeting pending the checking of some missing points raised. Seconded by Councillor Alec Cormack. The vote, undertaken by way of a show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That the Minutes of the Extraordinary Meeting held on 14 May 2025 be not approved and resubmitted to the following meeting pending the checking of some missing points raised. Councillor Bethan Price abstained from voting as she was not in the Meeting.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the report be noted.
The Committee considered a report by the Head of Democratic Services on actions arising from the last meeting. The Recommendation was Moved by Councillor Joshua Beynon; Seconded by Councillor David Howlett. The votes, undertaken by way of a show of hands, were carried. RESOLVED That the report be noted.
There was no public submission.
The Chair proposed that the Forward Work Programme be taken after Agenda Item 9 – Asymmetric Schools, in case the Committee wished to add additional items during the meeting. This was accepted.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the Committee determines whether the Council should adopt a standard, evidence-based approach to teaching reading in all primary schools. This should look at which specific approach be adopted, how teachers will be trained, and how this approach will be monitored. This item will be reviewed by the Committee in February 2026 with a recommendation to Full Council. [Councillor Maureen Bowen was ineligible to vote as she was not present throughout the full debate].
The Committee considered a report by the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning who outlined the key points of the report, including that there had been a national concern with the decline in reading standards post-pandemic and the delay in language development due to the increased screentime that children had. Proactive steps had been taken to try and resolve this like reading and writing projects and staff were being trained to be able to teach in the latest evidence-based approaches. The Committee discussed the report, and the following key points were noted. Regarding the discrepancy between pupils who received free school meals (disadvantaged pupils) and pupils that did not, Councillor Beynon queried what interventions were undertaken between them and whether there were discrepancies between students in Welsh and English medium stream schools. In terms of pupils receiving free school meals, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning responded that these more disadvantaged pupils became more in line with their peers as they progressed through the school years. Improvement advisor work was done too and intervention packages to help more disadvantaged pupils like phonic lessons with teaching assistants. He noted that interventions needed to be enforced as soon as possible. Regarding any discrepancies between the two language streams, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning said that they did not have as much information on reading in Welsh stream school compared to English. Schools had requested support around this so they have invested in a pre-pandemic Welsh reading test, and they will do a similar assessment with this as reading in the English streams but on a smaller scale. As the report stated how the UK’s reading standards were worse than other developed nations post-pandemic, Councillor Stoddart questioned why distractions i.e. screentime was more pertinent in the UK and Wales and why was Wales the worst preforming nation in the UK. In response, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning noted that Welsh education system had been the weakest in the UK for at least 15 years by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). Challenges with parenting, screentime and the pandemic had not helped this especially as Wales was in a weaker position already. He continued that there had been a lack of focus on reading in Wales and a Welsh Government’s focus had been elsewhere. However, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning stated that Pembrokeshire schools had provided their honest views on the report which was good for discussion and clusters had started working together to share best practices with reading. Councillor Stoddart noted that the English curriculum was more stable and formal compared to the new Welsh curriculum. Regarding the importance of reading, Mr James Parkin noted that the ability to read affected a child’s future and self-reading could counter some of the socioeconomic factors that hold certain children back. He queried if organisations could be contacted to go into schools and help children with reading. He concluded that this was an addressable crisis. To add to this, the Chair questioned if visiting book shops still existed and visited schools. In response to the points raised, the Director of Education said that some schools did have volunteers go in to help students more volunteers would be welcomed. Schools were often pressured to do more for more disadvantage pupils and this work could be considered for the Poverty Strategy. To add to this, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning concurred that volunteers from organisations could be sought to help with reading. Children were getting more distracted by their phones and this meant that schools needed to redouble their efforts with getting children to read. On page 58 of the agenda pack, Councillor Cormack highlighted that it said that standard age score for Pembrokeshire was 94.8/100 with the English medium average being 93 .9 and the Welsh medium average was 94 .8. He queried how this was possible. In response, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning agreed to check the figures and said that Welsh medium streams tended to be more ‘niche’ because there was a much larger sample of English medium schools compare to Welsh. While concurring with the points raised by Mr Parkin and Councillor Stoddart, Councillor Cormack emphasised that the report showed that early years reading methods in Wales were not as good as methods in the rest of the UK which was a political problem. At the bottom of page 58, he noted that there were quantitative measures for the GL Studies from 2024 but there were no statistics for Spring 2025. Therefore, he queried how they could know that ‘pupils remained around or below the national average’. In England, pupils were taught to read using synthetic phonics, and this produced better results. Councillor Cormack noted this method was used in Wales too but at the bottom of page 59, it said that synthetic phonics were adapted for manageability; he said that this should not be done as it was shown that the way it was done in England worked. In response, the Director of Education said that they would be able to provide the data from Spring 2025 on synthetic phonics, but he clarified that there was not one system for them. The issue was the fidelity to that synthetic phonics programme and the willingness to monitor and evaluate that rigorously; this was done in England but not Wales. Therefore, this is the intervention work that has been undertaken, for example with the Read-Write Programme. He concurred that the new curriculum for Wales caused some challenges and teachers needed to ensure that they could focus on the specific teaching elements set out in the curriculum. The Director of Education continued that schools were adapting the phonics programme for manageability before the intervention programme was launched. Therefore, the fidelity of the programme needed to be maintained and not deviated or adapted from for it to be monitored. If one synthetic phonic programme worked better than the others, the Councillor Cormack said that should be the programme that schools follow. In the report, he noted that schools could not afford a full training session on this, so teachers had to teach each other. On page 65, Councillor Murphy highlighted that the Pembrokeshire average for literacy was 39.3 for just under a Grade C GCSE and 35.4 for numeracy. At Ysgol Bro Preseli, it was 45.57 for literacy and 43.27 for numeracy and these figures were similar at Ysgol Caer Elen. This implied that English speaking standards were better at Welsh medium schools than English. He continued that Welsh medium schools did not have asymmetric weeks and no school in Ceredigion had them either and Ceredigion schools outperformed Pembrokeshire schools. Therefore, he suggested that some action be taken with this by the Council, in line with the action taken against mobile phones in schools. Politics aside, the Chair said that no one on the Committee wanted to see children struggling in school but the lack of quick reaction to these falling standards had not helped. He said that interventions should be done, and the Council should not wait for direction from Welsh Government. Councillor Howlett noted that the Institute of Fiscal Studies reported that the performance of disadvantaged pupils in England was above or the average of all pupils in Wales. He read that England used the ‘queuing method’ the teach reading until 2005 but it was still used in Wales as of October 2024. There were concerns in England that the method undermined efforts to teach pupils to read. He queried if the queuing method was still used in Wales and did it negatively impact the figures. In response, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning clarified that the queuing method was looking at pictures and ‘guessing’ how a word was constructed. Teachers in Pembrokeshire were told not to use this method, and it was not found be prevalent in Pembrokeshire. However, schools adapted programmes that they struggled with, and this led to the programmes losing their fidelity and this was likely due to the lack of training. In June 2025, 96 teachers in the Haverfordwest cluster of schools undertook phonics training. On school visits, Councillor Howlett queried if councillors could ask teachers about queuing method. In response, the Director of Education said there should be no issue with schools being asked what type of programme they used for reading and what worked and what did not. As it was a big issue, Councillor Howlett queried if a member seminar would be beneficial for members on this and trying to get school governors to discuss the issue with their schools. Regarding the queuing method, Councillor Anji Tinley noted that this was how she taught her children to read as toddlers, so she disputed the claim that it was not a useful method. She queried how family members were meant to teach children to read before school if they did not understand the phonics method. She questioned how a ‘disadvantaged learner’ was defined. In response, the Director of Education said that one way pupils were defined as ‘disadvantaged’ was if parents could not afford a school meal. Other definitions for ‘disadvantaged’ pupils were if there was no support at home or family issues like substance abuse. Schools independently determine whether a pupil is disadvantaged using a range of indicators from Welsh Government’s ‘Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation’. Regarding different reading teaching methods, the Director of Education said there was no issue using the queuing method at home, but it was not an endorsed practice at schools. However, every school was expected to explain the methodology with teaching reading to parents and methodology changed dependent on the best practice at the time. He concluded that families were asked to support their child’s learning at home too. Since the pandemic, Councillor Tinley said that there has been no progression with students and their basic skills including reading and writing and she had to do work with children around this in her work. She said there was no fun in learning in a lot of schools now due to the excessive number of exams children had to undertake. She suggested that teaching should go back to basics to improve learning in Pembrokeshire. In response, the Chair noted that the Education Team know that the current system was not working and he recalled one school visit to a secondary school where new Year Sevens could not read, write or count and they had to teach them the basics before they could start their secondary education. With regards to software packages, Mr Parkin queried if they were looked at as they could have a positive impact on children’s learning. In response the Director of Education said that software licences for education were expensive and something that schools struggled to afford. The attainment of software was the individual school’s decision. Councillor Maureen Bowen questioned if there was any correlation between early learning at nurseries and reading at schools. In response, the Director of Education clarified that early learning started from two to three years old with funded childcare placements. There was no county-wide testing system for children pre-school age but schools test children's phonological awareness or readiness for reading and reading skills. He noted that tests could be overbearing the national testing programme which starts in year three and by then there is sufficient and robust data to share with the school community and local authority. It was important that this work continued in order to learn how to improve reading skills and children needed the right approach and systems to grow in their school lives. Regarding software, Councillor Cormack said all schools should have same software and it could be cheap bulk buy for the Council that would allow consistency across schools. In response, the Director of Education said the 1988 Education Act states that schools manage and govern themselves so they would need to see if bulk buying the same software for all schools was something they could legally do. With regards to governing bodies, Councillor Cormack said that they had the authority to make decisions, but they would not object to any benefits offered by the Council with software. The Chair noted that technology had replaced the physical touch of books which partly caused the issues now being faced with reading. He noted that teacher was having to do more than teach in schools and in some cases were taking on carer roles for children and some parents did not have time for their children after school. There was the debate on whether money should be invested in teaching support assistant or technology; he was in favour of retaining support staff and that they would be essential going forward. Regarding the comments raised by Councillor Cormack, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning said that getting schools to work and budget together had historically been difficult, but they could look getting all schools to utilise the same software programme. Following all the comments made by the Committee, Councillor Guy Woodham, the relevant Cabinet Member of Education and the Welsh Language concurred with the Committee and agreed to monitor the progress of reading standards with the Director of Education. He suggested that this item be brought back to the Committee and continued to be scrutinised. A Motion was Moved by Councillor Alec Cormack to the effect: That the Committee determines whether the Council should adopt a standard, evidence-based approach to teaching reading in all primary schools. This should look at which specific approach be adopted, how teachers will be trained, and how this approach will be monitored. This item will be reviewed by the Committee in February 2026 with a recommendation to Full Council. Seconded by Councillor Josuha Beynon. Regarding he proposed motion, Councillor Jamie Adams said that Committee had a political responsibility to resolve this issue for Pembrokeshire schools and give the Director of Education a way forward. The Director of Education said that this item could come back in February 2026 as they will receive the GL Assessment information in the Autumn of 2025. The vote, undertaken by way of a roll-call, was carried. The votes were recorded as follows: For the Motion – Councillors Rhys Jordan, Huw Murphy, Alun Wills, David Howlett, Joshua Beynon, Nick Neumann, Viv Stoddart, Bethan Price, Jamie Adams, Alec Cormack, Anji Tinley and Mr James Parkin [12] There were no votes against or abstentions. RESOLVED That the Committee determines whether the Council should adopt a standard, evidence-based approach to teaching reading in all primary schools. This should look at which specific approach be adopted, how teachers will be trained, and how this approach will be monitored. This item will be reviewed by the Committee in February 2026 with a recommendation to Full Council. [Councillor Maureen Bowen was ineligible to vote as she was not present throughout the full debate].
The Meeting adjourned at 11:25 and reconvened at 11:35.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the Committee: a) Expresses concerns with the asymmetric week and its impact on attendance and educational attainment. b) Asks Full Council to provide a political view and determine whether the Council should support asymmetric weeks.
The Committee considered a report by the Head of Engagement and Communities who outlined the key points of the report, including that attendance was generally lower in asymmetric schools, especially on Fridays but this had improved since this item was last presented to the Committee. An attendance strategy had been launched in February 2025 in try to improve attendance in school and 20 schools now had Family Engagement Officers. The Committee discussed the report, and the following key points were noted. In response to a question from Mr Parkin on a possible correlation between asymmetric schools and literacy rates, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community said that he was not aware of one, but asymmetric schools tended to have more disadvantaged pupils. Given the previous agenda item, the Chair asked for this to be looked at and it could be brought back to a future meeting. In response, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community noted that in secondary schools, if a pupil’s attendance was less than 95% then they were less likely to get five good GCSE results, including English and maths. Therefore, there was a correlation between good grades and attendance, and it would be good if the committee looked at the correlation between more engaged parents with the school their child’s grades. Following a question from Councillor Stoddart on why Broad Haven stopped being asymmetric, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community clarified that the school consulted with parents who requested that a normal school week be reinstated. Additionally, the school said that the asymmetric week did not have the impact desired. He confirmed that another school reverted from the asymmetric week before Broad Haven School. Following a supplementary from Councillor Stoddart on why no Welsh medium schools were asymmetric, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community confirmed that this was due to logistic issues and because most pupils at Welsh medium schools did not speak Welsh at home; therefore, schools wanted them to stay at school where they could speak Welsh for longer. Regarding asymmetric weeks, Councillor Tinley noted that she spoke to a few classes at secondary school about politics and three out of the four classes she spoke to wanted to discuss asymmetric schools. All the classes stated that they would prefer either four long days at school and Friday’s off or for their school hours to revert to normal. She suggested that pupils could submit a petition around this as they did not like break time in asymmetric weeks. [Councillor Joshua Beynon left the meeting at this juncture at 11:49] The Chair welcomed any views from young people that they would like to share with the Committee. Regarding asymmetric schools, Councillor Cormack said that it was not just attendance that was impacted by asymmetric weeks as teachers had told him that pupils struggled to concentrate on the longer days. He queried if any school surveys had been done around this. In response, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community said in the past, the School Improvement Team did a ‘deep dive’ into asymmetric schools, and this was something that Estyn focused on during their last visit. They had not surveyed every school, and they did not have the resources to do this. With regards to a survey, Councillor Cormack queried if this could not be done electronically with teachers due to the impact asymmetric schools have. As asymmetric weeks were individual school decisions, the Chair highlighted that they would not be able to do a lot with the data collected, even if the Committee voted to recommend that asymmetric weeks should no longer be implemented. Regarding the point raised by Councillor Cormack, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning said that a survey had been done last year so this could be shared with the Committee. However, he reiterated that this kind of survey could not be done annually. As teachers did not always attend the Committee’s meetings, Councillor Bowen said that she would like the Minutes of the JCC (Educational Joint Consent Committee) for education to get the teacher’s perspective. [During consideration of this item of business, Councillor Maureen Bowen declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that her partner worked at Ysgol Harri Tudur]. Councillor Murphy reiterated the question raised by Mr Parkin of whether there was a correlation between literacy and numeracy standards and asymmetric weeks as it could show that reading standards in English medium schools were better at non-asymmetric schools. He concurred that it would be good to see if parental engagement and pupil grades were linked. Regarding attendance rates, Councillor Cormack queried if the attendance training that teachers received could be shared with the Committee. In response, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community said there was a lot of attendance codes that needed training. He suggested that this be a Member Seminar as it would effectively be a training session for Members. To add to this, Councillor Murphy stated that the attendance codes meant that children who were 15 minutes late for school would be marked absent despite remaining for the rest of the school day. He concurred that the codes were difficult. The Chair noted that time keeping was an important skill for children to learn. He noted that it was not always the pupil’s fault but a Member Seminar on attendance codes would be welcome. In the report, Councillor Cormack noted that the data showed that asymmetric schools had a lower attendance on Fridays. In response, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community concurred with this, but this was not the case in every asymmetric school, and this had improved this year. [During consideration of this item of business, Councillor Nick Neumann declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that he was an LA Governor of Broad Haven School which was mentioned in the report]. Regarding Broad Haven School’s previous asymmetric week, Councillor Neumann informed the Committee that it was to improve children’s learning opportunities and improve teacher’s CPD training too. He queried if there was any feedback from teachers regarding CPD training in asymmetric school. When the deep dive into asymmetric schools was done, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community noted that it was mixed as some children stayed at school and did activities which was staffed by LSAs, and they would not have any CPD training because of this. However, teachers said that they found it useful and gave them time to be able to do their work or work with clusters. He noted that some teachers did say they hate it. He concluded that it was looked whether asymmetric weeks had better outcomes for staff and pupils and there was no concrete evidence that there were. As a supplementary, Councillor Neumann queried if there was any correlation with school size and CBD training. In response, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning confirmed that CPD training was easier in larger schools as they could release staff to undertake it. Regarding Estyn, Councillor Stoddart noted that they found that school chose to not go asymmetric because they felt that it was not in the best interest for their pupils and asymmetric schools were so as there was weak evidence that it benefitted pupils and teachers focused on the benefits they had from asymmetric weeks. As reading, science and maths needed to be improved amongst pupils, Councillor Stoddart said that Friday afternoons should be used to focus on these subjects instead. In terms of the Committee’s role, Councillor Cormack queried what the Committee could do regarding asymmetric weeks. In response, the Head of Education Improvement & Commissioning clarified that the Council was neutral, but they asked schools to thoroughly investigate asymmetric weeks before implementation. He concluded that the Committee could ask for the policy to be changed. As most the Committee seemed to be against asymmetric weeks, Councillor Cormack said that they should consider taking a political stance on it as they did with mobile phones. The Chair concurred that the Committee should take a political lead with this as the neutral policy carried out by the Council was not politically led. As schools needed to carry out a consultation prior to implementing an asymmetric week, Mr Parkin said that this should be robust enough to aid their decision making. In response, the Director of Education said that the 2002 Education Act and the Changing of Session Times in Wales Regulations 2009 allowed asymmetric weeks and required them to undertake a consultation for this which needed to include the local authority as a consultee, as well as parents and other local authorities. It was confirmed that the Council’s neutrality on asymmetric weeks was due to there being no political decision on it from Members. To add to this, Councillor Woodham suggested that either Cabinet or Full Council to decide on it following a directive from the Committee. With regards to the evidence for and against asymmetric weeks, the Head of Engagement, Performance & Community said that the evidence would not point one way or the other as it was interpretative and there were a lot of external factors. The Chair noted that schools determined whether they wanted to implement asymmetric weeks, but some may be swayed by the Council’s stance. A Motion was Moved by Councillor Huw Murphy to the effect: That the Committee: a) Expresses concerns with the asymmetric week and its impact on attendance and educational attainment. b) Asks Full Council to provide a political view and determine whether the Council should support asymmetric weeks or not. Seconded by Councillor Alec Cormack. The vote, undertaken by way of a roll-call, was carried. The votes were recorded as follows: For the Motion – Councillor Rhys Jordan, Huw Murphy, Alun Wills, David Howlett, Nick Neumann, Viv Stoddart, Bethan Price, Jamie Adams, Alec Cormack and Anji Tinley [10] Abstaining – Mr James Parkin and Councillor Maureen Bowen [2] There were no votes against. RESOLVED That the Committee: a) Expresses concerns with the asymmetric week and its impact on attendance and educational attainment. b) Asks Full Council to provide a political view and determine whether the Council should support asymmetric weeks.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the Forward Work Programme be accepted. Councillor Bowen asked for the EJCC minutes to be presented to the Committee. In response, the Chair said that he will try contacting the relevant body who had these minutes and see whether they would consent to having them being public and shared with the Committee.
The Committee considered the Forward Work Programme. The Chair confirmed that the Committee will review Reading Standards again in February, after the statistics from the Autumn 2025 have been obtained. The Recommendation was Moved by Councillor Rhys Jordan; Seconded by Councillor Alec Cormack. The votes, undertaken by way of a show of hands, were carried. RESOLVED That the Forward Work Programme be accepted. Councillor Bowen asked for the EJCC minutes to be presented to the Committee. In response, the Chair said that he will try contacting the relevant body who had these minutes and see whether they would consent to having them being public and shared with the Committee.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the report be endorsed.
The Committee considered a report from the Head of Democratic Services on the 2024-2025 Annual Overview and Scrutiny Report. The Head of Democratic Services presented the highlights of the report and noted the good practice noted by Estyn with school representatives attending meetings after visits, pupils presenting their school’s mobile phone policy, and Milford Haven having a PCSO appointed after the Committee contacted the Dyfed-Powys Police & Crime Commissioner. She concluded that Democratic Services actively advertised meetings on social media to encourage public engagement. Regarding public engagement, the Chair emphasised the need for the public to be involved in committee meetings and so they could see what elected member does for their residents. The Recommendation was Moved by Councillor Rhys Jordan; Seconded by Councillor Huw Murphy. With regards to meetings, Councillor Murphy emphasised the impact that in person meetings had and this would especially be needed when the budget is discussed in February 2026. He thanked the Chair for his work this year. In last year’s report, Councillor Cormack noted that other livestreaming options other than Public-I were considered and he queried if there was any outcome to this. In response, the Head of Democratic Services said the Head of Law & Governance opted for Public-I as there was not a better alternative on the market. In May’s Extraordinary Meeting, Councillor Murphy noted that they were very high for the Committee, and this showed that specific topics gaged public interest. As the Council had thousands of followers on Facebook, the Chair reiterated that he was in favour of livestreaming on there after the technology issues were resolved. The vote, undertaken by way of a show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That the report be endorsed.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED That the report be noted.
The Director of Education presented the report on the Memorandum of Understanding for The Delivery of Post-16 Education in Pembrokeshire and highlighted that the Memorandum remained unchanged and what was being done to help with the transition. For Year 11’s the number of pupils not in education or employed had increased to above the Wales average but for Year 12’s it was far below the Wales average. A lot of young people were going into successful vocational pathways now instead of Sixth Form, but peer pressure did lead to some pupils taking courses they do not want to which led to them restarting their post-school vocation. He concluded that more online provision was made for pupils who wanted to take A Levels online or start their vocation that way. [Councillor Anji Tinley left the meeting at this juncture at 12:42] In response to a question from Councillor Cormack on why there had been an increase of Year 11’s not in education or employment, the Director of Education said that mental or physical health barriers contributed to this increase; there were 36 young people with these health issues last year. Therefore, work was being done to help these young people overcome these barriers and find them alternative routes into education or employment. They will not know if the Council is inline with the Welsh average until Summer 2026 and they did not know how many young people outside Pembrokeshire participated in the survey. [During consideration of this item of business, Councillor Bethan Price declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that she was an LA Governor of Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi and her grandchildren attended the school]. The Chair noted that some school leavers were not ready to leave school due to mental and physical health reasons and this should be resolved first even if it did not look good for the county’s statistics. Regarding the A Level Committee, Councillor Murphy suggested that a local business owner who is a councillor should be on this Committee as they could offer apprenticeships. With regards to the A Level Committee membership, the Chair said that he would relinquish his seat for any other councillor who would wish to join it. [Councillor Anji Tinley rejoined the meeting at this juncture at 12:51] The Director of Education agreed to discuss this proposal with the Pembrokeshire College Corporation Board. The Recommendation was Moved by Councillor Rhys Jordan; Seconded by Councillor Huw Murphy. The vote, undertaken by way of a show of hands, was carried. RESOLVED That the report be noted.
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