Saltney school left off Flintshire admissions portal for six months, audit confirms
A Saltney Catholic school was missing from Flintshire Council’s online admissions portal for almost six months in 2024, an Internal Audit report going before Cabinet next week has confirmed.
The finding, contained in two audit reports prepared in response to opposition Notices of Motion, partly contradicts assurances given on the floor of County Council in January, when the Cabinet Member for Education insisted the school had ‘remained continuously visible and selectable’ on the system.
The audit found that St Anthony’s Catholic primary in Saltney was removed from Flintshire’s Synergy admissions system between 10 April and 30 September 2024, after officers decided that, because the school managed its own admissions, it should not feature on the portal.
The school was reinstated on 30 September 2024 once it raised concerns that three parents had been unable to find it.
The audit also identified two parents in 2025 who applied through the council and were told the school was proposed for closure.
On 22 May, before the formal consultation began, a parent inquiring about an in-year transfer was told the school was ‘one of four Catholic Schools which Flintshire Council proposes to close’ with no mention that the proposal was still subject to consultation.
That parent chose a different school. A near-identical message sent on 18 June, during the consultation, added the line: ‘Please note this is still in the consultation stage.’
Both reports are on the Cabinet agenda for Wednesday 13 May, alongside the substantive decision on the wider Catholic super-school plan.
The investigations were triggered by two Notices of Motion brought to the Council meeting on 27 January by Cllr David Coggins Cogan, Liberal Democrat member for Gwernaffield and Gwernymynydd. Both were carried by 34 votes to 17.
In the chamber, Cllr Coggins Cogan said parents had been ‘shadow-banned’ from applying for places at the school amid uncertainty over its future. ‘St Anthony’s School in Saltney was a thriving primary school,’ he told councillors. ‘The numbers were rising, the roll was rising right up until the point the consultation started.’
He added: ‘On April 29 last year, at 11.15am, a member of staff at the contact centre told a parent who rang up to enrol their child that there was no point doing it. The school was going to close and the consultation was just a fig leaf.’
The audit confirms that incident took place but says it was investigated separately and excluded from the current review.
Cllr Mared Eastwood, the Cabinet Member for Education, Welsh Language, Culture and Leisure, refuted the allegations in January. ‘The allegation St Anthony’s was removed from the online portal is unfounded,’ she told the chamber. ‘St Anthony’s has remained continuously visible and selectable on the council’s online admissions portal for all relevant entry years. At no point has the school been removed, hidden or made unavailable.’
She called on Cllr Coggins Cogan to apologise. He declined.
Saltney’s own Cllr Richard Lloyd, a member of the Labour-led Cabinet, broke ranks to support the motion. ‘Following a meeting that myself and Councillor Jason Shallcross had with parents of St Anthony’s over a year ago, it was brought to our attention that some parents were unable to register their children in either nursery or reception class at St Anthony’s Primary School via the council’s website,’ he said.
The second audit report examined a separate motion alleging the council was monitoring teachers’ social media to silence dissent. Auditors found that the School Modernisation Team did review publicly accessible social media during the statutory consultation period and contacted the school over one post officers considered factually inaccurate.
The post, made by a member of staff in the public Saltney Old and New Facebook group, urged parents to enrol their children to keep the school open.
No records were kept of the social media monitoring and there is no specific council policy governing the practice.
Auditors said ‘it is lawful to review publicly accessible social media groups.’
The audit also found that, in March 2025, the Diocese of Wrexham, not the council, instructed staff at St Anthony’s not to speak to a BBC news crew.
An email from the Diocese stated: ‘No member of staff must comment or be part of this and news teams should not be allowed to film on school premises.’
The two investigations took 16 audit days in total. Their headline conclusion is that there was ‘no evidence to support the allegations within the notices of motion.’
Cabinet is being asked to ‘welcome the assurance’ that the allegations are unproven when it meets next Wednesday.
The report points to falling pupil numbers at the school predating the consultation.
Pupil Level Annual School Census data shows St Anthony’s roll fell from 128 in 2019 to 67 in January 2025, with the decline accelerating well before the closure proposal was published.
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