Unhappy reader: Cllr Sue Perkins

AN INVESTIGATION into the conduct of the council’s controversial consultation on the future of secondary education has found no evidence that pupils were pressurised into providing set responses by teaching staff.

The investigation arose from a single complaint.

Instead of allowing the school to carry out its own investigation into the complaint, as is the procedure with other grievances concerning teaching staff, the Council launched its own investigation. When we asked why the council was carrying out the investigation, we were told: “The complaint was in relation to a consultation exercise that the council is running, and Sir Thomas Picton is a school maintained by Pembrokeshire County Council. We are entitled to investigate just as we would investigate a complaint about any other institution or service that the Council is responsible for.”

The council sent out 108 questionnaires to pupils at STP, but only 25 were returned. The subsequent statement regarding the investigation said: “The complaint was that at a school assembly, pupils were given a partial and one-sided presentation on the education review by pupils from the Joint School Councils, after which they were told to fill in the consultation form. No specific members of staff were named in the complaint.”

Extrapolating the figures the council has depended on in reaching its conclusions from the miniscule number of responses received, 6 pupils thought teachers had not given a balanced view of the options, 8 indicated some concern about the process, 10 said they were told they had to fill out the form (a voluntary action) and only 1 pupil said they were not left to fill in the consultation as they wanted.

Sir Thomas Picton has 1,250 pupils.

The council’s Cabinet Member for Education and Safeguarding, Councillor Sue Perkins, said: “We are satisfied that whatever may, or may not, have happened in the school, pupils have responded to the consultation as they wished. Consequently the investigation will go no further, and the consultation forms from the pupils at Sir Thomas Picton School will be analysed in the normal way as part of the Council’s response to the consultation. The council is committed to ensuring that all points of view are heard in the debate on the future of secondary education in the county and to treating different points of view with respect.”

She added that using the lessons learnt from the matter, the CYPRO will be issuing guidance to all schools in the county on best practice in engaging pupils in any future consultation exercises.

However, The Herald has been told by a well-placed source, on condition of anonymity: ‘STP wanted to issue a joint Statement with PCC. However, as the wording could not be agreed PCC went ahead anyway with their statement and THEN informed STP it had been done’.

Cllr Perkins has also responded angrily to a Herald article. In an email sent to other councillors, Cllr Perkins claims The Pembrokeshire Herald said she had ‘lied’ to councillors. We are happy to clarify, as we did in our original article, which it appears Cllr Perkins has not read from the content of her email to fellow councillors, that: ‘An error in information provided to Cabinet member Sue Perkins, the IPPG’s spokesperson on education, meant that she INADVERTENTLY (emphasis added to assist Cllr Perkins) misled councillors at a key meeting that discussed the council’s plans for education in Pembrokeshire’.

We are happy to clarify this matter for Cllr Perkins and invite her in the future to contact us directly with any observations or complaints she has about The Herald’s coverage of her role in the reorganisation of secondary education in Pembrokeshire.