Northern Ireland
Assembly

Mr Mervyn Storey

Chairperson, Committee for Education

TO ALL MLAs

26 June 2008

COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATION MOTION
‘PRIMARY SCHOOL FUNDING ’ – 1 July 2008

1. The following Committee Motion is scheduled for debate in the Assembly on Tuesday 1 July 2008 at 12.30 pm (indicative time) for up to 2 ½ hours. For Members’ ease of reference, the terms of the motion are as follows:

   “That this Assembly calls on the Minister of Education to urgently examine measures and bring forward proposals which would significantly increase funding to Primary Schools”.

2. The Committee agreed to prepare a short ‘Information Brief’ on this important subject, to be made available to all Members of the Assembly in advance of the debate. This contains documents relating to key submissions and Hansard records of Committee evidence sessions – notably the evidence to the Committee on 6 June 2008 from the Northern Ireland Primary Principals’ Action Group (NIPPAG – which represents 130 Primary School Principals), and the follow-up session with senior officials from the Department of Education (DE). These sessions triggered the Committee’s unanimous agreement to table the above motion.
3. The documents on the NIPPAG session with the Committee are available as Item 1 of the ‘Information Brief’ and the record of the session with DE senior officials is available as Item 2. The Committee recommends Members of the Assembly to consider these documents in particular, as the Committee has unanimously concluded that the issue of under-funding of our primary schools must be addressed in the short-term, and a long-term solution put in place for timely implementation. The NIPPAG paper highlights that a child in P7 attracts £1258 per year less in core funding than a child in Year 8, and also that primary schools in England get 79% of the level of funding for secondary schools, in Scotland 72%, and in Northern Ireland 61.8%.
4. To start action on this, the Committee has written to DE seeking papers before the Summer Recess on mainstreaming ‘earmarked’ funding to primary schools from initiatives and on short-term changes to the Common Funding Formula (CFF) to increase funding to primary schools. The Committee has also asked for immediate information on the forthcoming Review of the CFF.
5. The following documents are also included in the ‘Committee Information Brief’ for Members’ information:

   Item 3 : - The East Belfast Primary and Nursery Principals’ (EBPG) submission to the Committee on 26 October 2007, ‘Core Funding is grossly inadequate in the Primary Sector’; and
   - DE’s response to EBPG of 18 March 2008

   Item 4 : - DE’s Budget announcement of 12 February 2008.
   - Extract from the Committee for Education’s letter of 3 December 2007 on the Draft Budget 2008-2011 to the Committee for Finance and Personnel, highlighting concerns on primary schools funding.

   Item 5 :Research and Library Services’ Briefing Paper on primary school funding – a summary paper is included.

6. The full ‘Committee Information Brief’ on this motion is published on the Committee for Education’s website and is available at http://archive.niassembly.gov.uk/education/2007mandate/CommitteeMotions.htm.
   A copy has also been deposited in the Assembly Library.

Yours sincerely

Mervyn Storey MLA
Chairperson, Committee for Education