SIR,

When the Estyn inspectors finished their analysis of Monmouthshire County Council's (MCC) education services, councillors and officers probably had no idea that there was anything wrong, aware they their report would not be as favourable as other areas suffering more deprivation.

When the report was released to them prior to the public, it would have come as a shock to Councillor Hacket Pain and others as nothing could have prepared them for such an awful testimony to their handling and leadership, as despite the relatively low level of deprivation in the county, Estyn concluded that "given the levels of funding and the outcomes achieved overall, the education service provides unsatisfactory value for money".

Running around like headless chickens, they put measures into place to attempt to correct the areas that they were most heavily criticised for. It's all very well for Hacket Pain – who is paid £30,000 and holds cabinet responsibility for Children and Young People – to say "we have already begun to make the improvements that our young people deserve", but she fails to say why it all went so horribly wrong in the years prior to the report.

One of MCC's core values is that they aspire to be flexible in their thinking and action to become an effective and efficient organisation. This report shows that they are neither effective nor efficient in their approach to our young people's education.

The fact that Liz Hacket Pain has not resigned from her post, and Peter Fox, Leader of the Council, had refused to move someone else into the position who will take a fresh, strong approach to fixing what has gone wrong, just shows the inflexibility of their system.

Monmouth has now been added to the list of councils put into special measures – when Estyn sees a failure to supply an acceptable level of education and a council appears to lack the leadership capacity necessary to secure improvements – meaning that the Welsh Government is likely to step in and take over the running of our education system. Some may argue that our children's education should not be run by ministers from Cardiff. Some may argue that they could hardly do any worse than this lot.

(Name and address supplied).