THE cabinet member responsible for schools at Monmouthshire council has said that the governing body and not the local authority is responsible for staffing matters at Chepstow School after questions were raised about reorganisation of the school.

Cllr Liz Hacket Pain, speaking during a Monmouthshire County Council meeting on Thursday night, said that staffing matters were rarely dealt with by the local authority unless there was a request or reason to do so.

Cllr Dimitri Batrouni had asked Cllr Hacket Pain what the current situation was regarding the reorganisation taking place at Chepstow School.

Cllr Hacket Pain criticised his query as a “lazy question” as “it doesn’t ask me what reorganisation you are asking about”.

She said: “It could be the reorganisation of the chairs in the hall, it could be anything, but I'm presuming you mean the reorganisation of staff.”

Cllr Batrouni, the labour leader at Monmouthshire council, said that he was led to believe that the local authority had “extensive” involvement with staffing matters and questioned whether this was true.

Cllr Hacket Pain said: “I’m not sure what staffing matters you are referring to. Staffing matters take place all the time. I do think I know what it’s referring to, but I don’t want to answer the question as I don’t have any firm understanding.

“In effect, the authority does not have any straight forward matters to do with staffing, that again comes down to the governing body, the appointment of teachers is the governing body. Anything to do with staffing issues is the governing body.”

She added: “It is very rare that the local authority stand in on such matters, and when they do there is normally a request or a reason why they are asked to stand in. I’m sorry to be vague on this, but again I don’t have the clarification.

“And I couldn’t discuss an individual case in this forum anyway.”

Cllr Bob Hayward criticised Cllr Hacket Pain for answering the question with “five minutes of drivel saying I don’t understand the question” and said if she was unclear about the sense of the question she should have asked for clarity when it was submitted 10 days beforehand.

He added: “I think that’s a terrible statement to make.”

Cllr Batrouni was asked to put a written question forward to another meeting asking exactly what he wanted to know.

Cllr Batrouni also asked what the total spend was on redundancy payments at Chepstow School for the financial years 2014-2015 and 2013- 2014.

Cllr Hacket Pain said that in 2013-2014 £426,000 was spent and in 2014-2015 £369,000 was spent.

Cllr Batrouni said he was having “all sorts of emails and correspondents about matters relating to Chepstow School financial and others” and asked whether the council was considering donating some Children and Young People’s Select committee time to this matter.

Cllr Hacket Pain said the matter was dealt with in depth at the audit committee earlier in the week. She added that it was being taken forward with the leader himself.

Before the questions were asked Cllr Peter Farley and Cllr David Dovey both defended the school.

Cllr Farley, who declared an interest as a governor, said he had “unequivocal support for the head, the senior leadership and middle management and staff and pupils, in short the whole community in their work for the continuing improvement of the school, particularly as they are facing a barrage of criticism the kind of which I have never encountered in 45 years in education.”

Cllr Dovey said he would like to echo all of Cllr Farley’s sentiments.