Two Anglesey council commissioners to leave their posts

Two commissioners appointed to run Anglesey council will leave their posts in September, BBC Wales has learned.

Gareth Jones has been responsible for education and Margaret Foster has led social services since being appointed by the Welsh government in 2011.

No reason has been given for the timing of the departures.

Local Government Minister Carl Sargeant has said the Welsh government will withdraw from the council in the run-up to delayed local elections in 2013.

He appointed five commissioners to run the troubled authority last year after what he has described as “chronic political infighting and misbehaviour”.

Concerns about the social services department were highlighted last week by the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW).

‘Intervention’

It said that “there are serious failings regarding the safeguarding of children and consequently merits further inspection work”.

Anglesey’s education service was criticised last month in a hard hitting report by the education inspectorate Estyn.

It recommended the council’s education service should be subject to direct intervention by the Welsh government.

The council’s former leader, Clive McGregor, said at the time of the education report that it may well be “another nail in the coffin for the future of the of whole authority”.

He added that if council members and not a commissioner had been in charge at the time of the Estyn report, the councillor responsible for the authority’s education portfolio would have been obliged to resign.

Mr Sargeant has extended the commissioners’ appointments to allow a senior management team to be put in place by September.

He will then look to “start to bring his intervention to an end” before the local elections next year, which will be held 12 months after the rest of Wales.