How Your Money is Spent

Education and Children's Services

Your Council Tax contributes towards: 

• running 52 primary schools, six secondary schools, two middle schools, one special school and the Pembrokeshire Learning Centre.
• educating over 17,200 pupils and employing over 2,025 members of education staff.
• providing a team of school improvement challenge advisers.
• providing specialist provision for up to 200 pupils with complex learning difficulties in nine schools in Key Stages 1, 2 and 3.
• providing a team that works with parents, pupils and schools - including educational psychologists, specialist teachers, a Parent Partnership Service and learning assistants - to provide individual support to schools and parents.
• employing 21 full-time and 82 part-time youth workers and volunteers, and 14 youth justice team staff supported by approximately 10 volunteers who collectively work with over 3,000 young people.
• supporting the delivery of youth work and activities in a range of settings including four centres, 13 youth clubs, all secondary schools including an after school club, the PLC (Pembrokeshire Learning Centre) and Pembrokeshire College.
• providing a range of engagement opportunities, including vocational and skills development courses, and specialist outreach workers for over 650 disengaged young people.
• running the Music Service, which provides specialist weekly tuition to more than 2,500 pupils in over 80% of Pembrokeshire’s schools, and regular performing opportunities for around 500 students.
• providing about 43,000 meals a week to primary and secondary schools through the Schools Meals Service.
• facilitating the County Youth Assembly and locally-based youth forums as well as supporting a youth information website and the work of the Junior Safeguarding Board.
• supporting Pembrokeshire’s commitment to children’s rights through the Children’s and Young People’s Office and formal adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• supporting the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme in all secondary schools and four open award centres, with 199 completing the Bronze Award, 75 the Silver Award and 36 the Gold Award in 2019.
• improving the wellbeing of Pembrokeshire residents by offering over 600 opportunities across Pembrokeshire to connect with others, stay active and learn new skills.
• delivering the Learning Pembrokeshire adult community learning programme across the county, with over 4,400 enrolments on over 600 classes.
• co-ordinating the Springboard delivery in primary schools, providing over 230 learning opportunities for adults and families.
• supporting the development of the Welsh language provision with learning opportunities for over 800 people.
• improving the literacy, numeracy, communication and digital skills of adults by offering over 140 classes in Essential Skills.
• enabling 450 adults to gain qualifications which will help their employment prospects.
• delivering Sport Pembrokeshire initiatives, providing nearly 49,000 extracurricular sporting opportunities for secondary school aged pupils, and training for over 1,600 primary school staff, volunteers and young leaders.
• working with community sports clubs to increase junior membership which currently stands at 64% of the local population.
• providing a peripatetic PE service to a third of Pembrokeshire’s primary schools to ensure high quality delivery of physical education.
• delivering Children’s Social Care; at any one time working with over 1,000 young people and children in need.
• safeguarding and supporting schools with safeguarding support, advice and training with regard to the most vulnerable children and young people in Pembrokeshire including looked after children, children on the Child Protection Register, care leavers and those within the preventative services.
• recruiting and supporting foster carers and adoptive parents, and matching suitable carers to looked after children and young people.
• providing respite care for young people with moderate to severe disabilities at a specialist short breaks unit.
• undertaking crime prevention work with more than 1,500 young people each year.
• supporting victims of crime; 115 people were supported during the course of the year.
• delivering substance misuse and sexual health sessions across the County using a harm reduction model.  
• providing a Parent Partnership Service that during 2019 supported over 400 parents, children and young people information and advice for families of children with additional learning needs, through a helpline, website, drop-in surgeries and network meetings.
• delivering social opportunities for young people with additional learning needs through dedicated weekend youth and after school clubs.
• delivering specialist provision for up to 120 pupils with social emotional and behavioural difficulties across primary and secondary schools, this includes provision for pupils with Anxiety and Mental Health difficulties.
• providing over 3,600 school-based therapeutic counselling sessions for over 760 children and young people.
• providing a team of educational psychologists, counsellors, advisory teachers, therapists and learning assistants to work across clusters of schools with parents, pupils and staff.
• delivering a wide range of professional development for additional learning needs, as part of the Authority’s strategy to build school capacity.
• providing termly cluster meetings to enable Additional Learning Needs Coordinators to develop their knowledge, network and share best practice.