The Consortium’s role is to challenge and support schools in their work to improve educational outcomes.
The local authorities (through a Joint Committee attended by the Cabinet Member for education in each authority) agree the business plan including targets and budget for the region and hold the Consortium to account for the impact of its work.
The Consortium is funded by the local authorities.
There are approximately 380 schools in the Central South Consortium region. These are the key to the future educational and economic success of Wales.
How well children and young people, particularly the most vulnerable, achieve in this region significantly influences how the country and its education system are perceived within our borders and beyond.
Core Tasks
Highly effective school self-evaluation and improvement planning are critical to the development of a self-improving system. The core tasks of the Consortium are:
- To work with all schools, headteachers and governing bodies, to improve outcomes for learners, working more intensively with those where the need to improve is greatest.
- To support every school in its work to carry out self-evaluation, improvement planning and to put in place the right support to improve learning, teaching and leadership.
- To supply sharp and appropriate data and intelligence to schools to support self-evaluation and target setting.
- To develop and broker high quality support, increasingly using peer enquiry as well as the resources such as the school improvement groups, lead practitioners, and consultant leaders and governors.
- To support the local authority’s capacity for statutory intervention where needed.
- To support local authorities and their schools to deliver key Welsh Government priorities that focus on school improvement.The development of a self-improving school system occurs when all partners embrace the accountability which is necessary to deliver sustainable improvement across the system.
To do this, the consortium:
- Provides an Improvement Partner to each school in the region (with more time allocated to the schools most in need)
- Provides timely data analyses to support schools’ self evaluation and improvement planning
- Supports and funds school-to-school improvement partnerships. These enable schools to share good practice and learn from each other to improve teaching and leadership practice and improve outcomes for learners.
- Works with the Welsh Government to deliver its priorities in the region
- Allocates grant funding (e.g. the Pupil Development Grant - PDG) to schools in the region along with guidance and advice on how grant funding can be used to drive improvement.
Evaluating the Impact of What We Do
We recognise how important it is that we evaluate the impact of our own work to ensure that we remain reflective and responsive, and able to adjust practice to need. We do this using a variety of models and first-hand evidence. Teams evaluate their work internally and we formally evaluate practice across the organisation, and this is fed back to local authorities and the CSC Joint Committee.
Governance and Finance
The governance model at CSC is underpinned by a legal agreement between the five local authorities and includes aspects of the following:
- The Joint Committee agrees the strategy, business plan and risk register and monitors budget and performance.
- Directors of Education meet monthly and have a strategic decision making role. This Board includes representation from Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) and Welsh Government.
- The Regional Stakeholder Group (RSG) and Governor Steering Group meet half termly to review progress, provide advice and consult on any areas of development and share opportunities and barriers to progress.
- The Advisory Board reviews progress and challenges the Consortium once a term
- Education Scrutiny Committees collaborate across the region.
- Senior Leadership Team at CSC meets weekly to debate operational effectiveness, performance and strategy.
CSC Statements of Accounts
Please see below links to our annual published Statements of Accounts. For more information, please contact our Finance Team on cscfinance@cscjes.org.uk
Central South Consortium Statement of Accounts 2022-2023
Central South Consortium Statement of Accounts 2021-2022
Central South Consortium Statement of Accounts 2020-2021
Central South Consortium Statement of Accounts 2019-2020
Central South Consortium Statement of Accounts 2018-2019