Legal tweaks need to be made to a agreement with education providers ERW which will allow Powys County Council to walk away from the consortium.
At a meeting on 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.
Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion councils all announced that they too would withdraw from ERW 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 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.”
Council leader Rosemarie Harris said: “This is something unfortunately that been discussed for quite a long time.
“We have found ERW quite supportive, certainly in the last year or so, but there were other authorities who wished to withdraw for various different reasons and we will have to find a new way of working.”
Adult Social Care portfolio holder councillor Myfanwy Alexander added: “It has served our schools well, but in it’s latter stages there was some unnecessary political toxicity to the whole set up.
“My plea is that we try and de-couple this vital school improvement function from politics in the future.”
Cabinet approved the changes.
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