Legal tweaks to allow Powys to leave ERW education consortia
Legal tweaks need to be made to an agreement with education providers ERW, which will allow Powys County Council to walk away from the consortia.
At their meeting on Tuesday, December 15, members of the council’s cabinet were told that they needed to approve the “variation” to the legal agreement, or Powys could be the last of six authorities left as part of crisis hit ERW.
ERW is an alliance of six local authorities created to deliver school improvement services across Mid and South West Wales.
The problems for ERW started in March 2019, when the Neath Port Talbot Council’s cabinet decided to withdraw from the regional consortium.
They did this on March 31, 2020.
Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion council’s all announced that they too would withdraw from ERW, this would come into effect on March 31, 2021.
This would leave Powys and Pembrokeshire as the last two remaining members of the regional consortium.
Head of Legal and Democratic Services, Clive Pinney, told Cabinet members that the ERW joint committee, held on November 13, had received a request to amend the legal agreement to allow Pembrokeshire and Powys to be able to give three months’ notice to leave ERW.
Mr Pinney said: “In effect unless the notice provision within the legal agreement is amended, Powys and Pembrokeshire would not be able to leave at the same time as the other local authorities,
“If that were not possible Powys and Pembrokeshire would be in a situation where they will have the burden of running ERW on their own.
“I can tell members that Pembrokeshire have already resolved and passed a similar resolution.
“If we are unable to do this we would be on our own in ERW, which would be really burdensome and expensive.”
Mr Pinney told the cabinet that ERW had sent a letter asking PCC to make the changes.
Cabinet approved the changes.
The report shows that Powys County Council gave £81,000 last year to the ERW budget and when the ERW budget is re-distributed between the council’s, Powys could receive between £800,000 and £900,000.
Replacing the services offered by ERW, such as by setting up its own Secondary Schools Improvement Team could cost the council £513,000.
