Defining the 'best person for the job'

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Following the announcement that the Chief Executive of Carmarthenshire County Council is to retire shortly, there has been some discussion about the way the council has been run in the past.  Personally, it seems to me that if an authority is – or gives the impression of being – led by its officers rather than its political leadership, the fault for that lies squarely at the door of the political leadership.  Blaming the officers for filling a vacuum, or for having dominant personalities, is a cop-out; the responsibility always lies with the elected members to assert their authority if and when necessary.

Of more interest to me is the question of the future replacement.  Last week, Cymdeithas yr Iaith called for the council to ensure that the next appointee is a fluent Welsh-speaker, something with which I would whole-heartedly agree.  I remember speaking with some of the councillors about this issue before the current chief executive was appointed.  Whilst some very much wanted a knowledge of Welsh to be a requirement, they were strongly advised that they couldn’t do that at the time.  I thought that advice was wrong then, and I think it would be wrong now.  The compromise arrived at was, as I recall, a requirement for the new appointee to learn Welsh.  Whilst I know that lessons were provided, hindsight shows clearly that that was a meaningless stipulation.

The problem has been, historically, that organisations considering whether to make a post ‘Welsh essential’ or not have been considering, primarily, the external aspect of the role – how, and to what extent, the appointee needs to be able to interact directly with the public outside the council and whether translation facilities can be sufficient to render a requirement to be able to use Welsh superfluous.  The question that needs to be asked in a bilingual county like Carmarthenshire, however, is about the internal language of the authority as well.  Carmarthenshire is an authority whose political leadership have committed to extending the use of Welsh not just for external purposes but for internal ones as well, and that needs to be taken into account.

The argument that the council must get ‘the best person for the job’ regardless of language works only if, and to the extent that, the Welsh language is some sort of optional ‘add-on’ to the council’s activity, rather than something absolutely central to everything it does.  I doubt that anyone would seriously argue that a monoglot French speaker could ever be the ‘best person for the job’, no matter what other attributes or qualifications she or he might possess, so in what sense can the ‘best person for the job’ be a person who cannot understand what half the staff are saying to her or him unless either they switch to their second language or else a translator is present?

And what about communicating with the political leadership of the authority?  Of the 10 members of the executive board, I make it only 2 who don’t speak Welsh, yet in all discussion with an English-speaking chief executive, they must either switch to English or else have a translator present.  The latter works, up to a point, for formal meetings, but how about all the informal and casual discussions which must be taking place on a more or less daily basis?

But even for formal meetings, there is an impact.  As a translator, I have sat through many council, committee and working group meetings in the county as a translator.  What I have observed is that, no matter how well-intentioned senior officers may be (and many are extremely well-intentioned towards Welsh), the language in which meetings are largely conducted varies greatly according to the language of the officers (and, of course, the Chair).  That is not a criticism, merely a statement of observed fact.  If an authority like Carmarthenshire is serious about shifting the internal administration to make greater use of Welsh, then ensuring that the language is used from the top down is a key step that they can, and need to, take.

Cymdeithas are right to see the impending vacancy as a major opportunity for the council; but the way in which the council responds will also tell us how seriously they really take the policy which they espouse.

Quote, unquote

Tweet There’s been something of a hoo-ha in Carmarthenshire in recent months about the vexed question as to whether people should, or should not, be allowed to record or film meetings of the county council.  Some councils allow it, others do not; Carmarthenshire is in the latter category.

Whilst the availability of better and cheaper technology has made the question more pertinent, it isn’t a new question.  It was one which was debated in the old Vale of Glamorgan Borough Council back in the 1980s, when I was a member of that council.

The ruling group at the time (Tories, as it happens, but it could equally have been the other lot) wanted to bar the recording of meetings and proposed a resolution to achieve that – banning the use of ‘recording instruments’.  It was aimed at the press, rather than the public – the idea that the public might want to record their goings on would have seemed more than a little strange to them.

When it was debated, I rose to my hind legs, brandished my biro non-aggressively, and announced that I was holding a ‘recording instrument’ in my hand.  Were they, I asked, going to ban the use of biros in the Chamber as well?  The motion was hastily amended to refer to, as I recall, ‘mechanical recording instruments’, and despite my own continued objections was duly passed.

The arguments for banning the practice then were much the same as they are now – and they have grown no more valid with the passing of time.  Despite what some councillors claim, it is no easier to quote someone out of context using a voice recorder than it is using a biro – but at least in the one case there’s a record to demonstrate whether it was, or was not, out of context.

There is an expressed fear about being misquoted, but I rather suspect that the fear is about not being misquoted.

I don’t think that I was the most articulate and coherent speaker in the council chamber (although I’m immodest enough to claim that I wasn’t the most inarticulate either), and anyone who does a lot of public speaking will be only too aware that sometimes things can come out not quite as intended.  I was often misquoted by the local press for things I’d said in the Council Chamber – but here’s the thing: what appeared in print was invariably an improvement on what I’d actually said.  All hesitations and slips ups were miraculously removed by the local journos in the interests of creating a readable story.

Could it just be the case that some councillors in Carmarthenshire (unnamed to protect the potentially guilty) are actually more worried about not being misquoted?

Theory and practice

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I have posted previously about the re-organisation of secondary education in the Dinefwr / Gwendraeth area of the county.  The re-organisation was a consequence of piloting a 'tri-level' approach to considering systemic change in the educational arrangements.  The process wasn't actually invented here, but it has been applied with some enthusiasm by the Welsh Government.

There's a quite detailed assessment of the background to the introduction of the approach available here written by David Egan and Steve Marshall, but the approach is based on the principle that reform is best driven by partnership between the Government, the Education Authorities, and the schools themselves.

In theory, that seems to be a good basis for driving reform.  In practice, however, it has produced a set of proposals which I, and many others, find completely unacceptable.  I think that there are three main reasons for that.

The first is that the three levels involved are not exactly equal partners in the process.  Rather, there is an hierarchical relationship involved; the schools are run and funded by the LEA, and the Welsh Government lays down the rules within which the LEA and the schools can operate.

The second is that the county council selected an area of the county to participate, only including the schools in that area.  That looks to many of us to have been a pretty arbitrary decision; but once made, it inevitably constrained the range of options which could be presented.  (It’s not an unusual phenomenon, of course – he who frames the question can hugely influence the answer.)

And the third is that at least some of the parties went into the process with their own agendas. 

The county council seems to have had the objective of coming up with whatever reconfiguration was most likely to persuade the Government to agree to a major capital investment in the county's education infrastructure.  That's not necessarily an entirely bad objective, but when it becomes an over-riding objective, it can lead to where we are – a mismatch with the needs of the community. 

The government's officials seem to me to have had the simple objective of reducing the number of schools.  Again, not necessarily a bad objective in itself (albeit one with which I wold disagree, and not one that is anywhere spelled out quite that bluntly in any of the Government's official strategy documents), but when coupled with an apparent lack of understanding of the difference between 'Welsh-medium provision' and 'Welsh-medium education', it has been a major factor in arriving at an unacceptable outcome.

Where are we now?  The proposals have developed a momentum of their own despite the fact that they run counter to the language policies of both the government and the council.  And a process which seemed sound at the outset seems to have become little more than a shield to hide behind for all concerned, since everything is the fault of ‘someone else’.  

As an aside, it's interesting to note, that although what happened in Carmarthenshire was described as a 'pilot' of the process, there seems to have been little subsequent mention of it elsewhere.

Welsh desirable

Tweet Today's story in the Western Mail about whether the First Minister should be able to speak Welsh or not is, of course, based on a bit of mischief-making amongst the contenders for the leadership of the Labour Party. Given that background, it's tempting to simply ignore the question, and treat it as a bit of froth.

However, the fact that anyone can raise the question as a serious one in any context is something which worries me more than a little. Is someone seriously suggesting that the post of First Minister should be restricted to the 25-30% who have enough knowledge of Welsh to be able to give interviews in either language? I can think of absolutely no reason why a non Welsh-speaker should be barred from the job - devolution and the future of Wales is about much, much more than the Welsh language.

The Western Mail's editorial comment, suggesting that this is an issue which has a limited lifespan because all children educated in Wales now learn Welsh is the stuff of fantasy, sadly. Anyone who believes that the education system is turning out bilingual children is deluding him or herself.

I wish that it were so, but the harsh reality is that teaching second languages in school - whether Welsh or any other language - simply does not turn children into fluent speakers by the time that they leave school. Only fully Welsh-medium education achieves that, and the demand for that type of education continues to exceed the supply.

And far from turning Wales into a bilingual nation, the current policy direction of the Welsh Assembly Government seems to be to support those who seek to deliberately weaken Welsh-medium provision in places like Carmarthenshire, in pursuit of a more 'cost-effective' approach to the provision of school places. That issue of policy matters far more to the future of the language than the ability of any particular politician to speak Welsh.

With friends like these...

Tweet In the last county council elections, Plaid made gains across Carmarthenshire, but the most stunning progress was made in the Llanelli area, largely at the expense of the Labour Party. All the reports that I get tell me that our campaign to get Myfanwy Davies elected as a Plaid MP for Llanelli is also going well, and that the party is continuing to advance in the constituency.

No surprise then to hear that the local Labour Party are getting increasingly worried that the party is "haemorrhaging support". Given that, it's not really a huge surprise that the local party has written directly to Gordon Brown, calling for a reversal of a range of policies.

What perhaps is a surprise is that they've issued the letter to the local newspaper, the Llanelli Star, in order to start a very public process of putting as much distance as possible between them and their own party's government. It smacks of desperation to me. With friends like these, Gordon Brown doesn't really need any enemies.

Missing the point

Tweet The Assembly Government's long-awaited strategy for Welsh-medium education was published earlier this week, and it's quite a hefty document.

It contains a lot of good intentions, but I ended up disappointed. As Syniadau has already commented, the targets seem less than ambitious. I also felt that they were comparatively short term, and that the targets stated needed to be placed in the context of more ambitious longer term goals.

But the over-riding factor for me was that it confirmed the impression that I have gained from other recent discussions about secondary education re-organisation in Carmarthenshire. I just don't think that either the ministers, or (and perhaps more importantly) the officials at DCELLS, have grasped the difference between Welsh-medium education and Welsh-medium provision. The terms 'provision' and 'education' seem at times to be used as though they were almost interchangeable. They are not.

I could find nothing in this document, for all the praise heaped on the success of Welsh-medium institutions, which would prevent – or even deter – an authority like Carmarthenshire from pursuing a course of action which will lead to the merger of a Welsh-medium school with an English-medium school. Indeed, the emphasis on 'provision' seemed almost to encourage that sort of response. It's easy to see again why Carmarthenshire believe that they've effectively been given the green light by DCELLS for their proposals.

Parents across Wales are increasingly choosing Welsh-medium education for their children. For those of us who make or have made that choice, the term means education through the medium of Welsh in a Welsh language institution. It does not mean an option to study some subjects through the medium of Welsh in an English language institution.

The document almost seems to suggest at times that separate institutions are fine in the anglicised areas of Wales, but less necessary in the north and west. This is a fundamentally flawed perspective, and I suspect that it is based on a hopelessly over-optimistic assessment of the success of 'bilingual' schools in offering such choice. In that context, it is interesting to note that in the map of 'Welsh' secondary schools, the document shows 6 in Carmarthenshire, whereas in fact there are only 3.

In theory, the other three offer a high proportion of subjects through the medium of Welsh; but the reality revolves around the word 'offer'. I'm aware that when pupils are asked their choice of language for any particular subject, there is an inevitable tendency to 'conform' and 'not rock the boat'; and when the majority choose English, the 'offer' can rapidly become a case of 'sorry, not enough of you opted for Welsh, so the course will be in English only for this year'. So, a school can still claim to 'offer' 60% of subjects through the medium of Welsh, whilst only 10% of pupils actually receive any Welsh-medium instruction.

The County Council is making proposals which would make this more normal, and dismantle the successes of the past in the process. On the basis of this document, the Assembly Government seems to be willing to sanction that approach. They can expect a lot of opposition from parents.

They still don't get it

Tweet The row over the re-organisation of secondary education in Carmarthenshire continues to rumble on. At the heart of the row is the question of who is taking the decisions, with the ruling Labour/Independent administration trying to argue that they have no choice – they are only following the instructions of the Assembly Government.

As I've noted before, it's not easy to get to the bottom of this; the role of the Assembly Government appears to have been muddied somewhat by the participation of officials from the Education department in workshops and discussions with the county council, and the detail of what was said in those discussions is not public.

What I can say with certainty is that there is nothing in the published, official, advice from the Assembly Government which could possibly be interpreted as permission – let alone an instruction – for the county council to merge a predominantly English medium school with a school which delivers 80% of its instruction through the medium of Welsh. In that respect at least, the mantra of the ruling groups at county hall that they 'are only following orders' is demonstrable nonsense.

Underlying the whole situation, however, is an uneasy feeling that the people shaping education policy at both Assembly and County level don't really understand the concept of Welsh-medium education. They don't seem to understand either what it is, or why so many parents opt for it when given the choice. And this lack of understanding is endangering the future of the Welsh language in one of the most Welsh-speaking counties in Wales.

They seem to believe that a single school offering a choice of medium of instruction in all subjects is an acceptable and viable alternative. It is not, and parents who have spent years fighting for full Welsh-medium instruction will not accept such a proposal. Unless and until those responsible for shaping policy either develop the necessary level of understanding or are replaced, Carmarthenshire seems to be set for a major confrontation between policy-makers and parents.

Holes in heads

Tweet One of the Labour Party's more – how shall I put it – 'colourful' characters in Carmarthenshire, Cllr Kevin Madge, said this week that "At this moment in time, we want more devolution like we want a hole in the head".

His point, insofar as he has one, is that we are in a recession, and the only thing that matters is jobs. I don't doubt, however, that if we weren't in a recession, there would be some other equally pressing reason why it was also the wrong time to debate the future status of Wales. For some people, it will always be the wrong time – because they're really against there being any discussion at all, and merely using specific issues to avoid having any meaningful debate.

The idea that at any time there's only one issue that we can discuss, and that discussion of any other issue is therefore an irrelevance, is a device which far too many politicians employ. But by concentrating all discussion and debate only on the immediate pressing problem, there's a danger that we fail to lay the longer term foundations - and invite only more of the same as a consequence.

For me, being in a recession doesn't make the question of Wales' future less relevant – quite the opposite; a debate about the causes of, and the long term solution to, Wales' chronic underperformance is exactly what we do need.

And then there were none...

Tweet A mere six months ago, in May, the Lib Dems celebrated almost unparalleled success (for them) in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, with one candidate elected to Carmarthenshire County Council, and 3 to Pembrokeshire County Council.

It took only a few days for the Lib Dem group in Carmarthenshire to annihilate itself, when the sole member signed up for full membership of the Independent Party on the council.

It's taken a little longer in Pembrokeshire, but last week, that group too finally succeeded in extinguishing itself. It wasn't long after the election when one of the three resigned from the council, causing a by-election which they promptly lost. That left them with a group of two councillors - until last week when one of the two formally resigned from the group.

That leaves both of them now officially unaligned with any group or party – or even with each other. It is, of course, all part of a cunning plan on their part – it seems that, under the council's rules, they'll qualify for more committee seats if they pretend not to be friends any more. It still looks like a very odd thing to do, though.

Frameworks and Blueprints

Tweet A few years ago, Carmarthenshire County Council first produced its 'Modernising Education Programme'. The plan was produced in order to deal with an increase in the number of spare places in schools, and the need to modernise and improve the facilities available for education in the county. As aims, who could disagree? It's almost what the Americans would call 'motherhood and apple pie'.

But there was a sting in the tail. It was always obvious that one way of delivering those objectives would be to close a number of rural schools, and Plaid called very clearly for the whole policy document to be subject to a proper public consultation. The council's response was that there was no need for that, because each and every individual proposal would be subject to full and proper consultation.

That's a promise which has come to sound increasingly hollow. When they do consult on the individual proposals, the consultations have come to look like a formality, and alternative suggestions are rapidly discounted. Indeed, in a letter to the local press last week, the cabinet member for education actually stated that the MEP 'is a complete project', and made it clear that there is, in his mind, no place for arguing against individual elements. What was a framework seems to have become a blueprint, which must be slavishly followed. And they wonder why so many think that the consultation processes are a sham.

The news that the One Wales government has produced some new guidelines for governors on creating federations is encouraging. This creates a real opportunity for school governing bodies in rural areas to take the initiative themselves and look at different ways of forming federations which could enable more rural schools to remain open.

I certainly hope that governors will look at this carefully as an alternative to allowing the county council to close their schools. And I hope that the Labour/ Independent Party coalition running the county council will set aside its blinkers long enough to give serious consideration to the wishes of the governors and their communities.

More on Post Offices

Tweet Talking about post offices must be starting to look like something of an obsession, I'm sure. But with 25 down for closure across Carmarthenshire - a wholly disproportionate share of the 2,500 for the whole of the UK – and a six week consultation period, it is inevitably very high on the agenda locally.

Last night I was at a meeting in Llangathen, in the Carmarthen East constituency; this time as an interpreter to provide a simultaneous translation into English for the benefit of those not able to understand Welsh.

It didn't surprise me to find that the Labour parliamentary candidate was issuing a leaflet opposing the closure. What was a bit of a surprise, however, was to find that it used the same design and wording as those issued by the MP for Carmarthen West - only the village name and the name of the publisher was any different. I had naively assumed that it was a local campaign by Labour in one constituency; it now looks like a co-ordinated campaign across a wider area.

I thought it was bad enough in one constituency to be arguing in favour of the plan, but against every individual closure; to be doing so on a widespread basis across the country starts to look like pre-meditated dishonesty. And they wonder why people are cynical about politicians.

PS – As with any good campaign, there are always moments of comedy. My second favourite to date was Dai Trelech, the 'character' who represents the Trelech ward on the county council, referring to the outreach service as the 'out-of-reach' service. But the best has to be the report by the post office on Llansteffan post office which said that the nearest branch was only one and a half miles away – in Ferryside. That's one of those pieces of information which is perfectly true, but utterly useless (except to a crow) unless someone is proposing to reinstitute the long-gone ferry service.

Who's the real winner?

Tweet When it came to the election of a new leader for Carmarthenshire County Council, Plaid’s group proposed Peter Hughes Griffiths against the incumbent, Meryl Gravell. It is, of course, no surprise that Mrs Gravell won, with the support of the 'Independents' and the Labour Group guaranteed in advance. Only the Plaid group supported Peter in the vote, as might be anticipated.

But the Plaid group insisted on this being a recorded vote, so that the names of all of the councillors who voted for each of the candidates would be recorded, and known to all. It seems that this has caused not a little distress to some of the 'Independent' members of the council.

According to the 'Clecs' column (sorry, not available on-line - you'll have to come to Carmarthenshire and buy a copy!) of the Carmarthen Journal, one of them approached the editor furtively, pleading with him not to publish the list (although I'm delighted that this did not diminish the editor's appetite for publishing the details!). “It would mean,” said the councillor, “that all the people who elected me would see how I voted”.

Indeed. It’s called open democracy. But why would (s)he be so worried?

Firstly, of course, because Peter is well-known and highly respected throughout the county for his work in a variety of arenas, not just his political commitment to Plaid Cymru. Whereas Mrs Gravell is, shall we simply say, not exactly the county's favourite person.

And secondly, because some of the ‘Independents’ have done their best to convince their electorates that they are really Plaid supporters at heart, and are free to vote in the best interests of their communities.

I can fully understand why they would not want people to know that they voted for Mrs Gravell rather than for Peter. But they have only themselves to blame for the inevitable electoral consequences of their actions.

Dib Lemming

Tweet That’s the name of a Lib Dem blogger from Pembroke who seems to have gone rather quiet recently. But it’s a catchy title, it suits my purpose here, and, as they say, imitation is the sincerest from of flattery.

For almost a whole week, Carmarthenshire County Council actually contained one Lib Dem councillor. Indeed, the news reports actually suggested that the said councillor had taken his whole party into the coalition which is running the council.

But it turns out to be not as simple as that. After going to all the trouble of getting himself elected under his party’s banner, the county’s sole Lemming promptly signed up for membership of the ‘Independent’ group, and in doing so, effectively renounced his status as a Lib Dem. So the Lib Dems are not signatories to the coalition agreement after all - because they no longer have a group on the council. Every position awarded to the said councillor has been allocated on the basis of his status as a full member of the 'Independent' group.

I doubt that there’s any political grouping in any elected body anywhere in the world which has extinguished itself with quite such alacrity – anybody able to prove me wrong?

The electors in his ward must be wondering why on earth they bothered.

A winning team

Tweet Not my description, but that used by Carmarthenshire County Council’s leader, Meryl Gravell, to justify continuing with the anti-Plaid Alliance in County Hall.

It’s an interesting piece of doublespeak, certainly from the point of view of the Labour part of the team. As Vaughan Roderick (translated by Ordovicius here) has pointed out, it's an odd definition of winning. If going from 25 seats to 11 is winning, I wonder what losing looks like. We'll just have to wait four years to find out.

Even taking the Anti-Plaid Alliance position overall, however, it is worth noting how close Plaid came to overall control of the council. Plaid won 30 seats, but needed 38 to gain a majority. Looking at the 8 most marginal seats from Plaid’s perspective, a further 600 votes in those seats would have been enough for Plaid to have formed the administration. This was hardly a massive vote of confidence in the ruling clique.

Whilst there is, of course, nothing in any way illegal in the way that the Alliance have retained power, it is hardly a surprise that many people in Carmarthenshire are having difficulty understanding why a party which was trounced remains in power whilst one which made such a spectacular advance is excluded. It is something which we in Plaid will take great pains to fully explain over the coming months and years.

Decimated in Llanelli, and wiped out in Carmarthen Town, the days of this particular Alliance are numbered.