1. Question to the Cabinet Member for Education and Regeneration from Councillor Timothy Thomas
What are your plans for the growth and promotion of Welsh Medium Education in the County Borough and how will this authority contribute towards the Welsh Government target of one million Welsh speakers by 2050?
2. Question to the Cabinet Member Communities from Councillor Altaf Hussain
Given the recent adverse weather conditions in the County Borough and the significant level of ongoing work within your portfolio i.e. potholes and street lighting etc. could the Cabinet Member for Communities advise me how this work has been prioritised. I am sure that this Council wishes to ensure that the risk of injury of our residents and the likelihood of road traffic accidents is minimised to prevent this Council incurring additional costs and supports the health and wellbeing of its residents.
Minutes:
1. Question to the Cabinet Member for Education and Regeneration from
Councillor Timothy Thomas
What are your plans for the growth and promotion of Welsh Medium Education in the County Borough and how will this authority contribute towards the Welsh Government target of one million Welsh speakers by 2050?
Response The full details of the local authority’s ambitions in respect of Welsh language education within the Borough are contained within the Welsh in Education Strategic Plan (WESP) 2017-2020.
The local authority has identified 11 targets to promote Welsh language provision over the next three years.
We will:
• develop a feasibility of Welsh-medium provision for the 21st Century School Modernisation Programme – informed by a learner demand survey and by the strategic review and childcare sufficiency audit;
• increase the recruitment of children to Welsh-medium schools by 5% over the next three years by presenting promotional materials from within the local authority and from Welsh Government that outline the benefits of being bilingual and by adding extra provision where there is sufficient demand;
• continue to develop and implement a strategy to increase the retention of children in Welsh-medium education in foundation phase and in key stage 2, to include the planned review of additional learning needs (ALN) support for the Welsh-medium sector;
• ensure that Welsh-medium provision is available to all children of pre-school age and above whose parents/carers wish them to receive their care/education through the medium of Welsh, and this within reasonable travelling distance from children's homes;
• ensure a developing continuum from Welsh-medium primary education through to Welsh-medium secondary education, so that pupils who begin their primary education through the medium of Welsh will progress to a Welsh-medium secondary school and progress accordingly into further and higher education and training;
• ensure that Welsh is taught as a first and/or second language on the timetable of all our schools, in accordance with the National Curriculum's statutory requirements, and that all pupils are given the opportunity to sit an externally accredited examination in Welsh at the end of key stage 4
• ensure that children and young people with additional learning needs receive linguistic equality of opportunity in terms of Welsh-medium education, in line with the SEN Code of Practice for Wales and the Council’s Strategy for Educational Inclusion and the new ALN Reform Bill;
• ensure that all pupils attending a designated Welsh-medium school can speak, read and write Welsh fluently by the end of key stage 2;
• work in partnership with all schools to improve the standard of Welsh as a first and second language;
• further develop teachers’ knowledge and understanding of Welsh as a first and second language, and provide opportunities for pupils to improve their knowledge and understanding of the cultural, economic, environmental, historical and linguistic ethos/characteristics of Wales via the Cwricwlwm Cymreig; and
• promote the wider development of pupils' Welsh language skills through specific activities and projects, in association with a wide range of partners.
It is hoped that these ambitious plans will support the Welsh Government’s target of one million Welsh speakers by 2050.
Supplementary question by Councillor Tim Thomas
‘With reference to the first paragraph of your response regarding the 21st Century School’s Programme, what are your band B capital funding commitments for Welsh Medium education in the County Borough? Also given the significant house building in the Valleys Gateway area, can we expect any Band B capital funding in the area to alleviate pressures on existing Welsh medium schools?’
Response: The Interim Corporate Director for Education and Family Support referenced the need to increase Welsh-medium education provision in the County and specified the requirement, as identified in Bridgend's Welsh in Education Strategic Plan (WESP) to promote the Welsh language. The Leader welcomed the work being undertaken on Ysgol Cwm Garw under Band A of 21st Century Schools Programme.
Second supplementary question by Councillor Altaf Hussain
Thank you for letting us know about the 11 targets to promote Welsh language provision for the next 3 years. Will the Cabinet Member let us know about the other objectives or actions which should be included in order to improve the infrastructure that helps people to use Welsh?
Response: The Cabinet Member for Education and Regeneration noted that Bridgend's WESP provides a number of objectives to promote Welsh; in schools, with families and in the workplace. The Interim Corporate Director for Education and Family Support further explained that Welsh Government has identified several key actions to help people to use Welsh. He noted that BCBC will continue to work with Welsh Government to ensure our responsibility to promote the Welsh language is met.
2. Question by Councillor Altaf Hussain for the Cabinet Member Communities
Given the recent adverse weather conditions in the County Borough and the
significant level of ongoing work within your portfolio i.e. potholes and street lighting etc. could the Cabinet Member for Communities advise me how this work has been prioritised. I am sure that this Council wishes to ensure that the risk of injury of our residents and the likelihood of road traffic accidents is minimised to prevent this Council incurring additional costs and supports the health and wellbeing of its residents.
Response: Our Highways Service is well versed with dealing with the weather conditions at this time of year.
We have an agreed winter maintenance plan (copy in the Members room) which outlines the way in which roads are prioritised for treatment with staff rota’d to manage the winter forecasting and gritting requirements of the Borough. They can also be deployed in the event of potential flooding incidents.
During periods of ice only events if calls are received off the main routes then an officer will attend to assess if spot treatment is required, and this will be prioritised alongside the ongoing precautionary salting i.e. when all primary routes have been completed and time allows attendance.
In the event of more adverse conditions such as snow, resources would be redeployed from routine maintenance to tackle that immediate issue. Generally these are short lived events and we can resume our normal maintenance functions.
In relation to highway defects the authority carry out regular inspections of the highway to check for defects. However, if any defect such as a pothole is reported to the Council through its call centre it will be initially assessed to ascertain whether an individual inspection is required to quantify the defect, then if appropriate to be scheduled for repair. In the instance of an emergency safety defect these would be given a 24hr response time and other repairs would be scheduled for action within 28 days if warranted.
For our street lighting during May, June and July we were averaging around 150 requests for service per month with an average response of 4 days to attend and undertake a repair (excluding signs and cable faults)
In November we had 296 requests for service with an average of 4.72 days response. Up to 12th Dec we had 535 tickets with an average response of those completed of 5.65 days.
Whilst our target response time for street lighting repairs is 5 days the winter months place additional pressure on this alongside provision and maintenance of Christmas decorations.
Supplementary question by Councillor Altaf Hussain
I thank the Cabinet Member for his response and earlier announcement in the Chamber. I remain concerned about the Member Referrals, which when submitted and sometimes marked for an urgent or immediate action by the Councillor is forwarded to the concerned department giving them 10 days to respond and it may take the department many more days, weeks or months to act. We have the recent example of Keir when the waste was left for days and days on our road sides. My question is who prioritises these Member Referrals? It should not be that we are creating unmanageable waiting lists as we have in NHS because we failed to prioritise the patient referrals.
Response: The Corporate Director Operational and Partnership Services advised that Member Referrals are received by the Member Services Section, and are then sent to the relevant Directorate for actioning within a 10 day period. In this time the Referral could be fully resolved and the Member would be advised of this accordingly. However, on occasions the Referral may need further investigating and input by a number of different Directorates and even bodies external to BCBC. This would therefore take longer and the Member would be advised of this accordingly. The Corporate Director Communities added that there is a methodology in place for processing Referrals, and prioritising these also. However, a large number of Referrals were referred to his Directorate and these, for example, could be for requests to remedy pot holes on a highway, or to increase the use of street lighting etc, in dimly lit areas. The problem was however, that his Directorate in particular had been the subject of recurring budget cuts over the last number of years, and there was insufficient resources to undertake a lot of work requested by constituents through their local Member, and therefore Referrals had to not only be prioritised, but also could often only be remedied in a relatively short space of time, if they were classed as urgent or a danger to the public. Other less important Referrals took a lot longer to resolve in order of priority. The Cabinet Member Communities concurred with what the Officers had said, and added that sometimes rather than to complete a Referral, it would save time if a local Member contacted the appropriate Officer in the relevant Directorate directly, or alternatively approached the relevant Cabinet Member (directly also).