Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 12 July 2017.
Well, as you quite rightly said, a presumption against closure was a manifesto promise in the Welsh Liberal Democrat manifesto, and I’m delighted to be in a position to make progress on that when in Government. As I said in answer to the first question from Janet Finch-Saunders, we are currently out to consultation on the reform of the school organisation code to strengthen that code and, indeed, to create for the first time ever in Wales a definition of what a rural school actually is. The first question any local authority should consider when looking at the issue around small and rural schools is the educational viability of that school, and they should use the opportunity afforded to them by the £2.5 million we are putting into the small and rural schools grant to be able to look at alternatives to closure to maintain a good standard of education in those small schools.