The Welsh Coast Pioneer and Review for North Cambria

Whitehall and Wales. Board's Indictment of Carnarvonshire. The Secretary's Reply. AT Friday's special meeting of the Carnarvon County Council, Mr C. A. Darbishire said that Mr J. E. Roberts, an ex-chairman of the Coun- cil, had handed him a letter which the Board of Education had addressed to Mr Roberts, and which he considered to be of such urgent im- portance that he had taken the responsibility ,of issuing a special whip to the Council to con- sider it. The letter, however, was of such a nature that he would suggest that it first be read in committee. A discussion ensued on this point, but it was ultimately decided that the letter should be read in open Council. The letter was then read as follows:— The Board's Indictment. Whitehall, 11th November, 1905. Sir,—I am directed by the Board of Educa- tion to request that you will be so good as to draw the attention of the County Council, as the local education authority for Carnarvon- shire, to the great difficulty which the Board find in obtaining answers within a reasonable period, in some cases at all, to communications addressed to the Education Committee of your Council. This complaint applies generally to corres- pondence with your Education Committee, and special failure and delay have been noticed in connection with the three following matters:—(1) Improvements in Council school .buildings; (2) the staffing of Voluntary -chool,s; f(3) the completion of the transfer of the Volun- tary schools to the County Council. 1. The Board have addressed during the past eighteen months numerous letters to the Edu- cation Committee relating to some forty or fifty Council schools having defects in ,the buildings of varying degrees. A large number of these letters failed to obtain any reply. Subsequently, on April 17 last, a special letter of a comprehensive character was sent draw- ing the attention of the Committee in serious terms to the facts as to the schools and the state of the correspondence. Again, no reply was received, and subsequently, on July 17, the Board wr j obliged to intimate that they had suspender, all grants until notice was taken of their letter. Since that occasion a certain improvement has been visible, although the correspondence in such cases cannot even now be regarded as entirely satisfactory. 2. The Board have recently called the atten- tion of your committee in another communi- cation to delay or failure in providing a proper staff in nearly twenty Voluntary schools, and one or two Council schools. In -these cases the Board's inquiries and requests have met with treatment similar to that men- tioned above. The correspondence relating to the Penmachno National School will illustrate this. A letter drawing attention to the seri- ems infraction of the Code and under-staffing -in September, 1904, met with no reply. A fur- ther communication at the end of February, -1905, after a month received a reply, in which the secretary of the committee requested a continuance of the arrangements upon inade- quate grounds. Six communications in the 'next six months calling attention to the need of amendment have obtained no reply. The twenty other cases will supply instances, in particular the Glan Llugwy and Carnarvon National Schools. [ 3. Some eight or nine schools are now in process of transfer to your authority,for which purpose certain formalities have to be observ- ed. In these cases also the Board find a simi- lar state of affairs prevailing. The Llaniestyn National School will serve as an illustration. Your authority informed the Board of their rntention to accept the transfer in 1903, imme- diately after the appointed day. A year later the Board inquired as to the progress of the matter and the publication of the statutory notice. No reply was received. Further in- quiries in November and December, 1904, and in January, February, and March this year failed likewise to elicit any reply, except of February 28, containing an undertaking to submit the necessary documents which was not carried out. The Board's last letter, in June, met with a reply, which, however, only asked for a further postponement of the matter. To these the Board did not consent. The Education Committee then satisfied one of the conditions, and wrote at the end of July stating that they hoped to submit a further answer in a fortnight. Three months have since elapsed, but the papers have not yet been received in this office. The Board invite the County Council's attention to the above cases and to similar delays in several other transfer cases. A careful perusal of the whole of the corre- spondence above referred to should convince the County Council that the state of affairs is not satisfactory. The matter concerns not merely the convenience of the Board's adminis- tration, but the performance of the conditions upon which, by statute, public elementary schools are required to be conducted. Temp- orary deficiencies, especially as regards staffs and buildings, may no doubt from time to time occur in some schools, and upon receipt of proper assurances from persons responsible as to amendments Joeing made the Board are gen- erally prepared to sanction the interim pay- ment of grants. But when no such assur- ances are received, and indeed the Board's let- ters are completely ignored, it becomes im- proper for them to regard the required condi- tions as fulfilled. The actual difficulties in the schools them- selves have already been dealt with in the cor- respondence referred to. This letter only con- cerns the difficulties which seem to arise in the County Education Office. As repeated communications to the secre- tary of the Education Committee of the County Council in the ordinary course produces no result, the Board are addressing this commu- nication to the chairman of the County Coun- cil, with a request that the matter will be brought to the notice of the Council and an alteration effected.—I have, etc., A. L. KINGSFORD. The Council's Position. Mr D. P. Williams moved that the secretary be allowed to make a personal explanation. Mr J. E. Roberts proposed that the matter be referred to a committee. Mr Thomas Roberts would not like to con- demn anyone without hearing him in his own defence, and if the letter which had just been read publicly went out alone it would present things in the blackest light unless the secre- tary had a chance of giving his explanations. vi (Hear, hear.) Mr J. R. Prichard hoped Mr J. E. Roberts would not press his proposal to refer the matter to a committee. (Hear, hear.) Mr Vincent said it was most deplorable that the Board of Education should think fit to ad- dress such letters to that Council, and it was all the more deplorable if that letter was justified by the facts. But was there a single member of that Council who was not in his heart of hearts absolutely convinced that that letter was absolutely justified? (Loud cries of "It is not justified"). Mr Robert Roberts asked if Mr Vincent was right in making a committee speech instead of a first-reading speech at that stage of the pro- ceedings before it had been decided whether to refer the matter to committee or not. (Hear, hear.) Mr Vincent made several attempts to pro- ceed, but was frequently interrupted by mem- bers rising to points of order. He himself had been informed by several persons that the clerk to the Education Committee had ignored letters from managers of non-provided and even some provided schools, or had treated them with scant courtesy. He referred to the secretary's action with regard to the Univer- sity College discussed at a previous meeting as an example of this sort of thing. Possibly the members of the Education Committee were also to blame, in which case he begged the Council to resume the powers it had delegated to the committee. Mr Vincent was proceeding to refer to the Welsh Education policy in gen- eral when he was ruled out of order, and finally he seconded Mr J. E. Roberts's pro- posal, which was lost. The Secretary's Reply. Mr E. R. Davies, secretary to the Education Committee, then rose to make his reply. He said that he regarded the letters from the Board of Education quite as seriously as the chairman did. At the same time he would like to dispel the idea which Mr Vincent had endeavoured to impress upon the Council, viz., that Carnarvon was the only county subject to attacks of this kind from the Board of"Educa- tion. (Hear, hear.) The Board of Education had consistently made attacks upon nearly every education authority in Wales—(hear, hear)—with regard to the repairs of schools, and was now in the throes of a fight with the Barry authority and with that of Glamorgan- shire. Dealing first with the question of repairs, Mr Davies said he had prepared a statement which he would read to the Council. It dealt with all the Council schools in the county, and it would be ,for the Council, after hearing that statement, to say whether there was any foun- dation for the allegations of the Board of Edu- cation. A long explanatory letter dealing with 44 Council schools was sent to the Board on the 14th June, followed by another on the 23rd July, with regard to the tenders. No re- ply was sent to those letters. Mr Davies re- ferred ,to further correspondence with the Board. He thought Mr Vincent, who had gone out of his way to play the part of prose- cuting solicitor, ought to listen to the defen- dant in this case instead of talking to another member. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Mr Vincent: I am listening, and I think it is most interesting. Mr Davies proceeded to read a statement dealing with 17 schools, in which repairs had been completed during the summer holidays at a cost of £ 740, and to mention a large num- ber of other schools in which repairs had been commenced and were proceeding. Afterwards Mr Davies dealt with the question of the staff- ing of a large number of schools, as to which he claimed conclusively to prove that so -far from being under-staffed, they were actually over-staffed. The Council would have observed that the complaint of the Board of Education was that the staffing of nearly twenty Volun- tary schools and one or two Council schools was inadequate. He wished to make it clear that the comprehensive communication as to the staffing of the schools to which the Board referred was only dated the 4th of this month. (Shame.) The week after, well knowing, as they did know, that the Education Committee only met once a month, at the end of the month, and therefore could not have dealt with the matter in the interim, the Board ad- dressed this letter to the County Council. (Loud cries of "Shame.") The Staff Commit- tee sat on Thursday and considered that com- munication for three hours, and went fully into the details as to every one of those 21 schools and directed him to prepare a reply and to submit the same to Mr Issard Davies, chairman of the Staff Committee, and to Mr D. P. Williams, chairman of the Education Committee, for their approval. That reply he had already drafted and submitted to those two gentlemen, and it would be for them to say after he had finished whether they approved of it or not. He would read it.—Mr Davies then read his reply, in which 21 schools were dealt with and shown to be, instead of under- staffed, over-staffed. He thought that dealt exhaustively with the complaint of the Board of Education, and it seemed to him that the matter of primary importance, so far as that Council was concerned, was whether there was any substantial ground of complaint as to the school buildings or the staffing of those schools. He thought he had effectively disposed of any suggestion of any neglect or failure in either respect. (Hear, hear.) As to the question of the correspondence, he pointed out the utter inadequacy of the staff, from the point of view of numbers, for the enormous amount of work imposed upon his department. As to the non-completion of the transfers of Voluntary schools, he frankly ad- mitted that the fault was entirely his own, but he pointed out that that was entirely due to pressure of work, and that by his failure to attend to this matter he was a pecuniary sufferer to the amount of the legal fees for drafting. (Hear, hear.) However, he hoped now to be able to complete these transfers im- mediately. Referred to the Education Committee. Mr Thomas Roberts (Aber) stated that some time ago he made a very serious charge of neglect against the County Education Com- mittee Office in answering communications ad- dressed to them. There was also neglect in other quarters. On behalf of the Clynnog School an application was made on October 15, 1904, for cupboards, this request being based upon the report of the inspector. The Educa- tion Committee, however, did not vouchsafe any reply, and no cupboards had yet been re- ceived. A Councillor: That school is a non-provided school. Mr T. Roberts: It is under the control of the county, and four of the managers are Noncon- formists. Proceeding, Mr Roberts remarked that it was proposed to transfer the school to the county authority, and an intimation to that eSect was sent to the authority, but no reply had yet been received. The Chairman pointed out that the subject under discussion related to the letter from the Board of Education. Mr T. Roberts: They complain, like us, that they receive no answers to their letters. He contended that the Educat'on Committee was at fault in appointing Mr E. R. Davies to the post of secretary, knowing full well that he was not expected to devote more than three days a week to his educational duties. As a ratepayer he protested against such an -ar- rangement, according to which Mr E. R. Davies cannot do the work he was paid to ac- I did complish by the county. The ratepayers id. not receive full value for the £ 300 he was pa n. I Mr Jones Morris (Portmadoc) moved, aS amendment, that the matter be referred t° Education Committee, and that they .shou e- forward a detailed reply to the Education D partment within fourteen days. Mr II. C. Vincent: Yes. That will give the usual opportunity of whitewashing t'ie j selves. (Derisive laughter). f Mr Jones Morris said he believed the cation Committee, with the assistance of officials, would be able to satisfy the Depa^. ment that the allegations, wherever lb emanated from, were without foundation- tIe- had no doubt whatever but that the two c'elltle- men sitting opposite knew more ahout tle Board's letter than anybody else. Mr Vincent asked whether Mr Jones. ( 1 was referring to him. "If so," said Mr y cent, "it is an absolute and deliberate fa hood." I never in my life had any coninll'ifi- cation with the Board of Education. y Jones Morris is referring to me, then 1 a him to withdraw. u Mr Jones Morris: I did not refer to y; lue But there is a gentleman standing be to1'6 j with half a sheet of paper in his hands, a that is Mr Thomas Roberts.. Mr Thomas Roberts absolutely denied he had been in communication with the of Education, and said that Mr Jones M°rl ought to withdraw his statement. A vote was then taken, and by an oV whelming majority Mr Jones Morris's allien ment was carried. # On the motion of Mr C. A. Jones it v agreed to acquaint the' Board of Educat1 with the resolution adopted by the Coutt Council. _"n_