Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 12 February 2020.
Well, it's now 17 years since secondary headteachers in Flintshire raised concern that they receive one of the lowest school budget settlements in Wales, and they told me about the constant pressures they face managing this while striving for educational excellence. They've continued to receive from Welsh Government every year since one of the lowest settlements—this current year, 2019-20, they got the nineteenth out of 22 overall school budget expenditure per pupil, and eighteenth for delegated budgets per secondary school pupil out of 22 local authorities. What action have you therefore taken, if any, since publication of a report last September showing that seven of the county's 11 secondary schools were in the red, with an overall deficit of nearly £1.5 million, made public shortly after an inspection by education watchdog Estyn found that Flintshire County Council had allowed a small number of schools to carry a shortfall for too long?