Ysgol Treganna

When I wrote this post in September last year, it was clear to me that the problem of finding a new location for Ysgol Treganna had finally been resolved. But that still left the matter of going through the necessary procedures to make it happen.

The proposal went out for formal consultation in January, and the public responses have now been collected and appraised in this report which will go to the Executive of Cardiff Council on Thursday. The public view was overwhelmingly in favour (there were only two objections) although some of those in favour had concerns over the size of the school and its close proximity to Pwll Coch.

It goes without saying that it will be voted through; but under the rather ridiculous rules that govern schools reorganization, even one objection is enough for it to be referred to the Welsh Government for a final decision. However it's very hard to see any minister for education rejecting it, for the issue is very simple, as this comment from the children at Treganna, Tan yr Eos and Pwll Coch says perfectly:

It is a good idea as it gives more children the chance to learn through Welsh.

How could we put it any better? ... and there is a selection of other views from the children starting on page 29. Their comments are illuminating because it's nice to see things from a child's perspective, and good that the children in all three of the schools affected were asked.

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But there were two other things that are worth noting. The first concerns how the school will be paid for:

The issue of how the new school would be afforded was raised at several of the public meetings, with concern that in the current climate the Welsh Assembly may not be able to support the Council’s bid for funding. Furthermore there has been a suggestion that if all investment is put toward building a new school there will be less available for others.

Appraisal of views expressed

As part of the continuous review of the consolidated financial model, officers engaged in discussions with WAG officials on the level of support that could be made available in response to Cardiff’s programme-based approach to its Schools Building Improvement Grant (SBIG) Tranche 3 funding bid, which focuses on proposals in East Cardiff. As a result of these discussions additional support of £5.7m is now available. This has the effect of increasing the overall resources available within the consolidated model to support the Canton Primary Provision proposal to £6.185m.

Other schools with investment needs remain reliant on the outcome of the Council’s 21st Century Strategic Outline Programme bids.

It shouldn't really be any surprise that the Welsh Government made more money available in order to build this school. The row that erupted at Carwyn Jones' decision not to allow the school to move to the Lansdowne Primary site would have resulted in a judicial review unless there had been some sort of understanding that the Welsh Government would fund a substantial part of a completely new school. What has happened makes Rhodri Morgan's claim that the school might not be built because funding had not been secured look pathetic and foolish. As I said at the time, he was simply playing the "innocent ignoramus" in a rather clumsy attempt to make it appear that a deal had not been done. It's a political technique at which he is an undoubted past master, but I have no time for that way of doing politics.

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The second thing that I found interesting are these comments about Welsh-medium provision in Grangetown, because although this proposal will solve the WM needs of Canton for the next three or four years, the downside is that Tan yr Eos will now close, leaving children in Grangetown with a far longer journey.

Dr Gwenllian Lansdown – Chief Executive, Plaid Cymru

I fully support the option offered which is to build a brand new school off Sanatorium Road. If Ysgol Tan yr Eos is to close then careful consideration is needed to ensure Welsh education is extended in the Grangetown area of the city. It is obvious that Ysgol Pwll Coch and Ysgol Treganna cannot meet the demand and there will be a need for another school in the South of the city very soon.

Cerys Furlong, Richard Cook & Ramesh Patel – Labour Councillors for Canton

Canton Councillors wholeheartedly support the proposal for a new build Ysgol Treganna on a site we identified off Sanatorium Road, and have been working to encourage Canton residents to back the proposals. We agree that the catchment areas need to be revised, however we remain concerned at the particularly large catchment for Ysgol Gymraeg Pwll Coch. We believe that further consideration needs to be given to the need for a Welsh- medium primary school in the Grangetown (and Butetown) area, alongside these proposals. Any delay in considering this demand will only lead to further problems with demand exceeding supply.

As I said before, these three Labour councillors claiming that this solution was their idea was in fact the surest indication that a deal had been done; but the proposal for a new school was Plaid Cymru's idea and formed part of the Capital Vision document agreed between Plaid and the LibDems after the 2008 election. This plan was thwarted because the Welsh Government said that they would not consider a new build solution while there were so many surplus places in the existing schools.

But it is good to see that there is now a degree of cross-party support for another new WM school in Grangetown. The Council document did give us an insight into Cardiff's thinking on the matter in response to some views expressed in the consultation:

Views expressed

Concern expressed regarding the growing demand for Welsh-medium education from Grangetown and Butetown and suggestions that rather than build a 3 FE school the Council should have considered building a 1FE/2FE nearer to the bay. Sites suggested include The Marl playing fields adjacent to Ferry Road and the old cigar factory on Penarth Road. Some have also asked whether Tan yr Eos could remain a school in its own right and be relocated permanently in the Grangetown/Butetown area, in addition to providing the enlarged Ysgol Gymraeg Treganna.

Appraisal of views expressed

The proposed new school is intended to address demand coming from in and around the Canton area. The rise in the birth rate in the area as a whole, coupled with the steadily increasing demand for Welsh-medium education means that there is a need for a 3FE school in the Canton area.

It is acknowledged that beyond this proposal there will be a need to consider further provision to ensure the availability of sufficient places to cater for the demand from the Riverside, Grangetown and Butetown areas.

The Marl Recreation Ground has been investigated previously and was deemed unsuitable owing to issues relating to an existing deficiency of Public Open Space (POS) in the locality along with difficulties associated with being able to satisfactorily compensate for the loss of POS.

‘The Marl’ is located in the Grangetown Ward, which has a deficiency of recreational and play space relative to the standard contained in planning policy (the 2nd largest deficiency out of the city’s 29 Wards). Furthermore the next nearest facility with comparable facilities is Sevenoaks Parks which does not have any capacity to accept additional facilities to compensate for the loss of the POS at the Marl. Clearly, in a heavily built up inner city area, where POS is already deficient, the opportunities for compensating for the loss of POS will be few.

In contrast the Sanatorium site is amenity POS in an area with a reasonable supply of POS and the Council is able to fund some improvements to the POS available at the site.

The site previously known as the ‘Freemans Cigar Factory’ is in private ownership. Whilst it is no longer used for cigar production it remains intended for commercial use with planning permission granted for this site in December 2010 for “Partial demolition of front elevation of existing buildings and various buildings on site and sub-division of existing commercial unit to create 20 smaller units with revised parking and boundary treatment”.

Ysgol Tan yr Eos was established in order to relieve pressure on Ysgol Gymraeg Treganna and Ysgol Gymraeg Pwll Coch and was intended to remain on its current site at Ninian Park Primary School for a period of two years. The proposed new school will be able to meet demand from in and around Canton with the enlargement of the catchment area meaning some of the pressure will be taken off the demand for places at Ysgol Pwll Coch; thereby allowing it to provide more places for the some of the increased demand from the Grangetown/Butetown areas that remain within its catchment area.

In addition, demand for English-medium provision within the Ninian Park Primary School catchment area is such that the facilities currently occupied by Ysgol Tan yr Eos will soon be required by Ninian Park Primary School.

At least this shows that Cardiff have considered sites for a new WM school in Grangetown, but it's something else again to actually make a firm decision on which site to develop. The only certainty is that the parental demand for WM education in Cardiff is going to keep on growing, so they need to be working on a solution now.

Labour aren't paranoid

Last week, the excellent BlogMenai drew our attention to a rather strange advertisement, with a warning about the dangers of that sort of personality politics. The Western Mail picked up on the story today, including Labour's reaction to it.

Mystery group targets Labour vote in Wales

... A Welsh Labour spokesman said: “We don’t comment on anonymous allegations. This is clearly a nationalist smear campaign. Why else would they be encouraging people to vote Plaid in Conservative-held Carmarthen West, where Labour’s Christine Gwyther is the only serious challenger?"

Western Mail, 4 April 2011

This is the advertisement in question:

     

As we can see, even though the advertisement urges people to vote Plaid Cymru in Cardiff West, Carmarthen West, Caerffili, Conwy and Neath, it also urges people to vote Tory in Cardiff North, Clwyd South, Clwyd West, the Vale of Glamorgan and Gower ... and even LibDem in Brecon and Radnorshire, Cardiff Central, Maldwyn, Newport East and Swansea West.

Yet isn't it just a little strange that the Labour Party only managed to pick up on one constituency and one party? Why pick on Plaid Cymru? The hapless Labour Party spokesman could just as easily have said that it was "clearly a Tory smear campaign" or "clearly a LibDem smear campaign".

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But this does prove one thing. The definition of paranoia is when you think everybody's out to get you. Labour clearly can't be in that category ... they're only afraid that Plaid are out to get them.

Rhodri Waffles

I couldn't help but smile when I read what Rhodri Morgan had to say about the Freedom of Information disclosure which has now proved beyond doubt that Labour had absolutely no intention of changing the Barnett Formula when they were in power at Westminster.

     Plaid Cymru attack Labour's 'inaction' over funding – BBC, 4 April 2011

     ‘Shocking and unforgivable’ that Gordon Brown did not want to end
     Barnett Formula injustice – Western Mail, 4 April 2011

Let's look at what he said more closely:

“What Plaid forget is that in the first Assembly the funding coming to the Assembly grew by 10% a year in cash terms or 7% in real terms. That was well in excess of any previous increase but clearly was going to lead to convergence because that’s how the Barnett Formula works. In the second Assembly increases continued at a healthy lick of 6.5% in cash terms for those four years or just over 4% in real terms.

“By the end of the second Assembly, concern about the shrinkage of the average annual increases we were receiving were starting to build up.

“During the third Assembly those concerns have become more acute because by now the average annual increase was some 4% in cash terms or 2% in real terms. This was the time therefore that concern over the underfunding of Wales started to become really material."

Although he's tried to hide it with a lot of waffle and an attempt at a diversionary sideswipe at Plaid, he now claims that the increases in public spending were "clearly going to lead to convergence because that’s how the Barnett Formula works".

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Much as they'd like to, Labour can't have it both ways. It's possible for them to say that didn't know it was going to happen, and they only found out about it after the Holtham Report was published. But if they take that line, it simply shows that Labour are financially incompetent. Or it's possible for them to say, as Rhodri Morgan claims, that Wales was inevitably heading for a funding shortfall that anybody with 28.35g of financial acumen should have been able to foresee. But if it was as clear to Rhodri as he now claims it to be, the question is much more damning:

    Why didn't Labour do anything about it when they were in power?

Personally, I think financial incompetence is a much more plausible explanation. Labour simply sat on their hands, and said and did nothing. They were happy just to spend all the extra money Wales was getting in the block grant without giving a thought to where the money was coming from, whether it was being distributed fairly within the UK, or whether it was sustainable. Labour in Wales were so parochial and introspective that they didn't notice that England was getting much more of an increase in public spending than Wales.

It took Plaid Cymru to point out to them that this could not last, and it was at our insistence that the One Wales agreement included the commitment to set up a commission on funding and finance. The good work of Messrs Holtham, Miles and Spahn put hard figures against what we knew was happening, most importantly by defining in objective terms the factors that should be used to quantify need.

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Yet even after the first part of the report was published in 2009, Labour in Wales refused to accept what it said. This was because Labour were still in power at Westminster, and it was therefore politically impossible for them to criticize their leaders there. Instead, Labour simply rubbished Plaid Cymru when we made the £300m annual shortfall in funding a central plank of our 2010 election campaign ... though it's more like £400m this year, and will continue to get worse.

But for this Assembly election, and only because Labour are no longer in power in Westminster, they have had a Road to Damascus "conversion" and now agree with what Plaid Cymru have been saying all along. Remarkable, isn't it?

Rhodri Morgan has shown us how easy it is to pretend to be wise after the event, but that's the sort of waffle we've come to expect. The real lesson to be learned is that Labour did, and always will, put their interests as a party ahead of the interests of Wales.

Small Change ... Big Difference

With a hat tip to Peter Black, here is a rather good video that explains how the Alternative Vote works:

     

I'm certainly going to vote Yes to AV, and I'd urge others to do the same. For me, the big difference is that it does away with the need for tactical voting; but apparently the "selling point" that seems to resonate with most voters is that MPs will have to work harder to secure support from a broad majority of voters, rather than just rely on their narrower core vote.

Scotland finally catches up

From today, people in Scotland will get their prescriptions for free. This brings them into line with what we in Wales did first, followed by Northern Ireland. This graphic from the BBC story will save a couple of sentences of explanation:

     

But I also read the Channel 4 version of the story, which included this:

... from research in Wales, there is an indication that access to free prescriptions results in more people receiving medication.

In Wales they have witnessed a year-on-year increase in prescriptions dispensed by GPs of between four and six per cent since the reduction in 2000-01 and the eventual abolishment in 2007. A further rise of 3.3% has occurred over the last year.

Channel 4 News, 1 April 2011

Channel 4 News is usually the most reliable of sources, but this is an example of taking something that's undoubtedly true, but drawing a wrong and intentionally misleading conclusion from it. In fact it's precisely the same tactic as was continually used by the LibDems to criticize the abolition of prescription charges in Wales, for example here:

Commenting on the 5% increase in items claimed on prescription, Jenny Randerson, Welsh LibDem health spokesperson said:

"We warned the Government that giving free prescriptions for all would be disastrous and today's figures have vindicated our position. Three million extra items claimed in the last year is a direct result of this policy."

Jenny Randerson, 19 August 2008

Yes, it's true that the number has risen and is continuing to rise. But exactly the same is true in England. This is what I wrote about it on the WalesOnline forum some while ago:

The number of prescriptions dispensed in Wales has gone up steadily year upon year, while the cost has step-by-step gone down. Last year, the increase was 5%.

     Welsh Government, 2008

The number of prescriptions dispensed in England went up steadily by 55.1% over 10 years (roughly 5% a year), and is expected to rise by 5% each year, even though the cost has step-by-step gone up.

     NHS Information Centre, July 2007
     BJHC & IM, March 2006

Result? No correlation between the price and the number issued.

WalesOnline Forums, 9 April 2008

And to those who say that it is right for those who can afford to pay for prescriptions to do so, I completely agree. Our four national health services are funded by taxpayers, and richer people pay more in taxes than those who are less well off.

Brynle Williams

It is sad to hear about the untimely death of Brynle Williams, an Assembly Member for North Wales since 2003, and on his party's list for this election. My condolences to his family.

     

This picture of him by Eleri Griffiths for the Assembly Project shows him in the setting in which he was most at home.

Into Five Figures

According to Statcounter, Syniadau had over 10,000 unique visitors for the first time last month, thanks mainly to a large surge during the week of the referendum.

That doesn't mean that there over 10,000 of you reading this, though I wish it did. I probably have a few hundred who visit every day, a few hundred who visit once or twice a week, and a few hundred others. I'm very grateful to each and every one of you.

Full details are on this page. I guess the challenge now is to continue the upward trend into April. Is anything big happening on the Welsh political scene over the next few weeks?