Carmarthenshire‘s schools are so far into the red that the council’s own money men are warning the county’s safety-net reserve could be wiped out.
Papers for Monday’s Carmarthenshire Council cabinet meeting show the county’s 108 schools ended March £9.6m in deficit between them and are on course to overspend by another £6.9m this year. That would leave a hole of £16.4m by next spring.
The report to councillors does not soften it. “The seriousness and urgency of this position cannot be overstated,” it says. Without intervention, “the deficit on schools’ balances is forecast to exceed the general fund balance”, the reserve the council keeps for emergencies, meaning “the general fund would effectively be negative”.
The response is a crackdown. Schools in deficit must stop all non-essential spending, governors are told to review budgets urgently, and an intervention board will be set up to oversee the worst cases. The budget outlook report says “formal intervention must commence immediately” and that where schools do not move fast enough, statutory powers will be used.
The schools deepest in the red
The secondaries carry most of it. Ysgol Bro Dinefwr in Llandeilo is forecast to end the year £3.0m in deficit. Ysgol Gyfun Emlyn is heading for £2.8m, almost as much as the £3.2m it gets to run for a whole year. Maes y Gwendraeth is at £2.0m. St John Lloyd in Llanelli is heading for £1.1m, Dyffryn Taf £915k, Dyffryn Aman £650k, Coedcae £581k and Glanymor £541k.
Heol Goffa, the county’s special school, is forecast at £762k in deficit. Only Bryngwyn, with a £764k surplus, and Bro Myrddin are in the black among the secondaries; Queen Elizabeth High is a whisker under.
Primary schools are £4.7m in deficit combined. Ysgol Myrddin in Carmarthen is the biggest at £822k, followed by Pentip in Llanelli (£457k), Bro Banw in Ammanford (£440k), Laugharne (£380k), Blaenau (£363k) and Brynsaron (£344k). Most village primaries are within a few thousand pounds either way.
How it got this bad
Finance officers say many schools have again set budgets above what they are funded for, with rising additional learning needs support one of the drivers. The council itself is £359k over on school redundancy and early retirement costs “due to the high level of redundancies within the year”, and has spent £117k on a consultant headteacher to go through school budgets.
The report ties the fix to closing schools, calling for “progress in rationalising the schools’ footprint”. Ysgol Llansteffan shut last month, and consultations on closing Ysgol Y Fro, Ysgol Meidrim and Ysgol Pontiets have already run.
The bigger hole
Schools are the biggest part of a council-wide overspend forecast at £11.3m for the year. Children’s services are £5.4m over, on top of £12m of extra money over three years, with more than ten new residential placements for children since January.
Last year the council had to take £1.75m out of its general balances to cover the shortfall. This year the corporate contingency is £2.3m.
The consequences are spelled out in the budget outlook for 2027/28. If the schools position cannot be brought under control, the report says the choice will be “radical service reductions” or “double digit increases in council tax”. Every £7m the schools fail to recover equals 7% on bills.
Cabinet meets at County Hall in Carmarthen at 10am on Monday, with resources cabinet member Cllr Alun Lenny presenting the reports, signed off by director of corporate services Chris Moore.
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When are we going to talk about the elephant in the room which is Carmarthenshire councils obsession with the Welsh language and providing infinite money for anything with “Cymraeg” attached to it.
Maes is welsh-medium and they’re trying to turn Bro Dinefwr into full welsh-medium too with the help of the new Head and governors – easy way to save money would be to stop the obsession with the language and realise that welfare of students and citizens of the county must come before their cultural lamentations before they implode and it goes anyway.