Cyngor Gwynedd Council's Education and Economy Scrutiny Committee met on 21/10/21 to discuss the closure of Ysgol Abersoch. The decision to close the small school in December has caused much tension between locals and the council.
Concerns have been raised that the majority of the consultation
process has happened during the Covid19 pandemic and that the council's report was inaccurate and misleading...
The Cabinet Member
for Education, Cemlyn Williams, is confident the process has been fair.
Can the same be said of other processes the Ed department has been involved with ? Are critical reports being sat on by this department, too ?
With the meeting going nowhere, Councillor Judith Humphreys proposed sending the matter back to the Cabinet. This did not go down well and an amendment was raised by Dewi Roberts, Councillor for Abersoch, who asked for the matter to go before full Council to hear the views of all Councillors.
Things then became a little surreal. During the vote on referring the matter to full council - one lay member seemed to freeze and stated she did not know what to do and asked for help. Democratic services had to intervene saying she could not be advised how to vote. The lay member voted against referring to full council and the amendment fell by the one vote.
The proposal to send the matter back to Cabinet - from whence it came - was passed.
The webcast of the meeting can be found here - https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/610141
