Cabinet members of cyngor Gwynedd council have made the decision to close two more local schools in the county.
'With a heavy heart...'
Ysgol Nebo and Ysgol Baladeulyn (Nantlle) will close at the end of the year...
The cabinet meeting was held on the 19th May, 2026 and the webcast of the meeting can be found here -
https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/1091820
Cabinet members also voted to allocate more money for Commissioning Investigations re the Neil Foden case and the failings of the children's department -
4.2 As the Cabinet will commission these investigations, there will be a need to report back to a range of various forums, e.g., the Governance and Audit Committee, to the Scrutiny Committee or to the Safeguarding Strategic Panel - those paths will depend on the nature of the work and the investigation in question.
Any investigation reporting back to the Safeguarding Strategic Panel only will avoid proper scrutiny by Gwynedd councillors and the public...
The agenda pack for the meeting can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/g5764/Public%20reports%20pack%2019th-May-2026%2013.00%20The%20Cabinet.pdf?T=10
The Governance and Audit committee met on the 21st, May, 2026.
The statutory director of Gwynedd SS departments, was to update members on the recent Estyn and presumably Care Inspectorate Wales reports. The agenda suffers from a bad interpretation at times...
It does contain this snippet - Still disappointed that there was no acknowledgment by Estyn of the deficiencies in their review of the Council's safety arrangements, June 2023.
This follows on from decisions made at the extraordinary meeting of the council in February, 2026 -
Committee members appeared to have forgotten the reasons for previous decisions made by them and the director of SS, Huw Dylan Owen, left the meeting without giving the update requested.
The Governance and Audit committee is one of the most important meetings of a council and should be webcast for other councillors and the public to view later. A webcast would also give members an opportunity to remind themselves of past meetings and prepare better.
Accountability at last..?
Later in the meeting, committee members called for senior managers to appear before them to explain the decisions and actions taken by the departments they are responsible for. .
The agenda pack can be found here -
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/g5754/Public%20reports%20pack%2021st-May-2026%2010.00%20Governance%20and%20Audit%20Committee.pdf?T=10
In other news, cyngor Gwynedd's Employment Appeals Committee have sat again recently. The committee has now heard more cases in 5 months then is usual for an entire year.
With a Plaid majority in the Senedd, will the Plaid council now renew their call for a public inquiry into Neil Foden?
Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council...
