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Committee for EducationBudget 2010 (2011/12 To 2014/15)COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATION FINAL RESPONSE (15 FEBRUARY 2011) TO THE COMMITTEE FOR FINANCE AND PERSONNEL ON ITS SCRUTINY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION DRAFT BUDGET 2011–15: DRAFT ALLOCATION AND SAVINGS PROPOSALS PUBLISHED ON 13 JANUARY 2011Pre Draft DE Budget Publication Scrutiny1. The Chairperson of the Committee for Education wrote to the Minister of Education on 8 July 2010 highlighting the Committee’s need for timely and detailed information on the future Education Budget in the context of Budget 2010 as follows:
2. The Committee requested copies from the Department of Education (DE) of information on its savings proposals to be provided to DFP by 26 August 2010 and other detailed information through its letters on 1 & 7 July 2010 for its Committee meetings of 1 & 8 September 2010, which were dedicated sessions for scrutiny of DE draft Budget proposals. The Committee subsequently received briefing papers from DE on 25 August 2010 and 7 September 2010 on Budget 2010 – Spending proposals. The Chairperson of the Committee wrote to the Minister of Education on 2 September 2010 listing key issues raised by the Committee at its meeting of 1 September 2010 with senior Departmental officials on the DE initial Spending Proposals. These included:
3. The Committee continued its scrutiny of DE initial Spending Proposals at meetings on 13 October 2010 with the Association of School and College Leaders and the National Association of Head Teachers, on 17 November 2010 with representatives of E&LBs Chief Executives, and on 1 and 8 December 2010 with senior Departmental officials (examining ICT/C2K and School Transport policy in the Budget context). Departmental officials also provided briefing papers on 19 October 2010 on non-permanent teaching and non-teaching staff and actual retirees/leavers, and on 24 November 2010 provided an analysis of the Resources and Capital Spending Proposals for the Budget 2010 period. 4. Following the Executive’s Draft Budget publication on 15 December 2010, the Committee Chairperson wrote to the Minister of Education on 17 December 2010 stressing the Committee’s need for timely and detailed information on the Minister’s forthcoming draft DE budget 2011 – 2015 as follows:
5. The Committee met on 1 December 2010 to continue its scrutiny of the forthcoming draft DE Budget and questioned senior Departmental officials on whether or not the Department was undertaking options/scenario planning on draft Spending and Saving proposals, particularly to protect frontline school services. Some Members expressed grave concerns that the senior official responded that:
The Committee received a further DE briefing paper on Education Workforce issues on 11 January 2011, which included a breakdown of the 15,635 education service non-permanent staff. Post Draft DE Budget Publication on 13 January 2011 Scrutiny6. The Minister of Education’s Draft Budget 2011 -15: Draft Allocations and Savings Proposals were published on the evening of the 13 January 2011 and the Minister wrote to the Committee on 14 January 2011 saying that she was ‘keen to meet and engage with the Committee at the earliest opportunity to hear your view on my proposals.’ 7. The Minister attended the Committee’s meeting on 18 January 2011 and the Committee continued its scrutiny of the DE Draft Budget with senior Departmental officials at meetings on 25 and 26 January 2011, dedicated exclusively to scrutiny of the Draft Budget. Following the meeting with the Minister of Education, the Committee agreed to formally request from the Department as a matter of urgency, a range of information through questions in seven specific areas (noted below). 8. The Committee raised a number of key issues with the Minister and these were set out in a list attached to the Committee’s letter to the Department dated 19 January, in the following terms: (1) The Draft Resource Allocation section – paragraph 3.2 to 3.5 of pages 6-8Paragraph 3.3 refers to ‘inescapable cost pressures associated with pay increases, price inflation, meeting statutory and contractual commitments and addressing demographic impacts’. Table 2 refers to these ‘Inescapable Pressures’ which are the key components of the resource spending ‘shortfall’ or ‘Gap’ building to £303million in 2014-15. The Committee requests a detailed breakdown of these ‘Inescapable Pressures’ for each year of the 4 years of this Budget period and the basis/rationale or underlying assumptions for each element of this. (2) The Executive’s Invest to Save Fund – paragraph 3.6, page 8Paragraph 3.6, refers to £10million available from the Executive’s Invest to Save Fund for Education for each of the years 2011-12 and 2012-13 to pay for severance/redundancies and ‘The Department will be seeking further provision for redundancies from the balance of the Executive’s Invest to Save Fund’. The Committee requests the Department’s forecast estimates/planning assumptions at this stage of the savings generated from reducing posts over each of the 4 years of this Budget period. The Committee needs to understand the ‘shortfall’ or ‘gap’ in spending requirements set out in Table 2, as this ‘shortfall’ determines the all-important savings proposals totals for each of the 4 years set out in Table 4. (3) End Year Flexibility – paragraph 3.7 & 3.8, page 8The Committee’s position on End Year Flexibility is that schools should not lose the £56million. However, the Committee requests what the likely pattern of draw down of this money would have been over the 4 year budget period – from previous annual draw downs – and what is the distribution of this money between primary, post-primary and the various school sectors. The Committee wishes to understand the problem this presents for schools and requests information on the options to mitigate the impact of loss being considered by the Department eg. phasing out options.The Committee would also ask for assurance that all schools affected by this EYF issue should be treated fairly under measures taken to mitigate the impact of the loss. (4) Draft Capital Allocation – paragraphs 3.9 to 3.12, pages 8-10Paragraph 3.12 refers to ‘44% and 35% of the draft Budget allocations in 2011-12 and 2012-13 is required to meet financial commitments (or inescapable pressures)’. The Committee asks does this mean existing contractual commitments and whether the remaining % is for some ‘moderate’ investment in minor works and maintenance particularly to meet statutory requirements. The Committee requests clarity on this, as the Minister is proposing to reclassify £41million in 2011/12 from capital to resource – this would leave £86.4million capital resource in 2011/12, and with £56 million committed, this reduces to £30million. The Committee asks what risk does this present in terms of planned and unplanned statutory work which could arise in schools in 2011/12. (5) Extension of Free School Meal Entitlement (FSME) – paragraph 5.2, page 14Section 5 provides the Minister’s more specific priorities for protection in the Budget period, which includes the extension of eligibility of Free School Meals Entitlement and the reference to ‘an additional £1million in 2011-12’. However, resource spending proposals given to the Committee in September 2010 gave an extension of FSME requirement of £21.8 in 2011-12 with some £31m costs per annum for the other 3 years of this Budget period. The Committee requests specific clarification on this – to include the specific spending proposals for the extension of FSME over the 4 year Budget period. (6) Proposed Savings – Table 4, page 16The Committee needs a lot more information on the impact of the proposed savings in this table and requests in particular:
(7) Aggregated Schools Budget – paragraph 5.24, page 22The Committee has major concerns with these saving proposals on the ‘Aggregated Schools Budget’ and the associated paragraph 5.24 commentary. This proposed saving amounts to £26.5m in Year 1rising to £180m in Year 4, and in % terms this represents 18.5%, 45%, 49% and 58% of the total savings proposed by the Minister. The Minister has stressed in her recent letters to the Committee, etc that her key priority is ‘to protect front line services (schools) as far as possible’. While noting the Minister’s assessment that the Department of Education requires access to the additional ‘possible revenue sources’ [£800million] identified in the Executive’s Draft Budget, some Members of the Committee asked how does this sit with these substantial direct Schools’ Budget Savings proposals ? The final year proposed cut is nearly one-fifth of the Schools’ Budget. Finally, paragraph 5.24 refers to putting ‘in place plans across the Education Sector to reshape the school provision through rationalisation and restructuring...’. This Committee requests what are the specific plans, including details of planned actions and timescales. 9. The Committee Chairperson emphasised that it was vital that the Department’s Draft Spending Plans, based on the draft DE budget document are provided to the Committee as soon as possible – the Committee wrote to the Department to this effect on 20 January 2011. 10 . The Committee received a response from DE on the evening of 24 January 2011 addressing the above information requests and questions and this (together with other key DE Budget 2010 papers and the Hansard record of the Minister’s session before Committee on 18 January 2011) formed the focus of the Committee’s discussion with senior Departmental officials at the Committee’s meetings of the 25 and 26 January 2011 (this response and other key DE papers and the Hansard record have been placed on the Committee’s website available at http://archive.niassembly.gov.uk/education/2007mandate/educationbudget_07.htm ). 11. The key points and concerns raised by the Committee, or some Members of the Committee, during these discussions are as follows: The Absence of Draft DE Spending Proposals (a) The DE response stated that Department’s Draft Budget document highlights the ‘main spending proposals’, but when the Chairperson asked senior officials to identify these, they referred members to the Minister’s additional spending proposals which are included in the Department’s Draft Budget proposals:
Some Members concluded that it was essential to receive a breakdown of the Minister’s Draft Spending Proposals for the £1.9 billion draft Education Budget now and could not accept the Department’s view that ‘to provide something at this stage could, in fact, be misleading for Committee Members’. The Department’s view was expressed in the context that: ‘At this stage it is not possible to reflect the out-workings of these changes [spending and savings changes] and update the Budget Distribution table as:
Also, some Members questioned the wisdom of not setting out draft Spending Proposal Plans on the grounds that the ‘Minister is determined to increase the amount of funding available for education’ and said that a ‘further £800 million is yet to be allocated’. These Members, while they would very much welcome additional money for education, pointed out that the Executive’s Draft Budget referred to ‘other possible revenue sources’ and ‘If any...have merit..., they will be factored into the final Budget allocations.’ Other Members stressed the need for the Executive to work together to secure additional funding for departments. Invest to Save (b) The Committee received no information from DE on forecast estimates or planning assumptions at this stage of savings generated by reducing posts over the 4 years of the Budget period. Although some £25 million is available in 2010/11 for a Voluntary Severance Programme, no definitive take-up figures or savings generated estimate was given – there was a suggestion that a £10 million take-up might represent 200 post reductions. Some Members were very concerned about the lack of information in this area as staff costs account for 80% of the education budget. The DE papers cited this as ‘clearly a critical area of work’ and some Members questioned the wisdom of not considering targeting potential savings from the 11,200 non-teaching non-permanent staff and the natural wastage from retirees and leavers, bearing in mind the total education service workforce is some 60,000 staff. Again, no information was available from DE officials on any consideration of this. Officials indicated that only when areas for savings had been confirmed could the potential for savings through reductions in non-permanent staff be assessed. The current Voluntary Severance Programme is focussed on ‘central management and administration and also professional development and support services’. Some Members saw the need to consider this area as a matter of urgency as clearly extensive job cuts would be necessary to deliver the magnitude of the savings proposed by the Minister in Table 4 of her Draft Budget, and in particular, with the proximity of the significant proposed savings commencing 1 April 2011. Other Members welcomed the protection of frontline services and jobs, particularly in Year 1 of the Draft DE Budget and called for additional funds from the possible additional £800 million for Years 2-4. End Year Flexibility (c) The Committee welcomed the Finance and Education Ministers’ guarantee on 21 January 2011 to put in place arrangements to ensure that schools have access to the £56.7 million surplus which they have accumulated, and both past and future savings will be honoured. Members agreed that they would wish to see precisely what these arrangements will be and that schools receive the necessary communication on this as soon as possible. Members also expressed concern at the number and level of school deficits (some 200 schools and £10.7 million total deficit), particularly with the draft DE Budget proposal to significantly reduce the Aggregated Schools Budget. Draft Capital Allocation (d) The Committee expressed concern at the overall level of the proposed capital available to DE for allocations over the 4 years budget period, particularly with the substantial maintenance backlog (estimated at £300 million) and minor works backlog (estimated at £100 million). Some Members questioned and had concerns with the Minister’s proposal to reclassify £41 million in 2011/12 from capital to resource, for example, this would reduce the uncommitted element in 2011/12 to £30 million and run the risk of not meeting statutory and Health and Safety requirements. While again other Members agreed with the reasoning of the Minister in proposing the move to protect jobs and frontline services. Also, at an earlier meeting, some Members questioned DE officials about whether more active consideration should be given to moving school capital projects forward by way of PPP or similar mechanisms. Extension of Free School Meals Entitlement (FSME) (e) Some Committee Members questioned and expressed concern with the DE initial Spending Proposals on the extension of FSME which was estimated in total to cost £21.8 million in 2011/12 and some £31 million per annum for the other 3 years of the Budget period. The Committee requested clarification on this and received, in the 24 January 2011 DE paper, significantly reduced spending proposals of £4, £4.6, £4.7 and £4.8 million for the Budget period, based on a significantly reduced estimate of 10,000 additional take-up and the figures include £0.4 million extension of primary school uniform grant. The Committee noted no additional funding has been identified to address the ‘knock-on’ increase on the Aggregated Schools Budget through the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU). However, some Members remained concerned that this extension of FSME has not been taken forward by the other parts of the United Kingdom and should demand exceed the 10,000 forecast, costs would increase – questioning if this extension is affordable in the context of the draft DE Budget allocations and whether the extension to Key Stage 2 pupils in September 2011 should be cancelled - while other Members welcomed the extension of free school meals as a valuable asset to low income families. Proposed Savings Areas (f) On the proposed savings listed in Table 4 of the Draft DE Budget, some Members had serious concerns that a lot more information is needed on the means to achieve such savings and the impact of these savings – particularly the substantial savings proposals and the impact, directly or indirectly, on front line services in schools. For example, there is very little information on how substantial savings in Arm’s Length Bodies (£60 million over the 4 years) and Professional Support for schools (£105 million over the 4 years) will be delivered, particularly as significant savings are proposed for 2011/12 with no evidence of plans, consultations, or timescales . Some Members pointed to the difficulty in identifying implications of the Budget due to the complicated nature of the education structure with numerous Arms Length Bodies and over 1200 schools managing budget lines. Some Members questioned and had concerns with the level of spending remaining for SEN capacity building, as the SEN and Inclusions Strategy is not finalised, while others agreed that such a budget line should remain open. Some Members questioned whether the proposed savings in Teacher Substitution Costs are achievable; and whether the savings proposed on Primary Principal Transfer Interviews can be taken forward as consultation on this proposal has not commenced. Aggregated Schools Budget (ASB) Proposed Savings (g) The Committee has major concerns with the ASB savings proposal and the means of achieving these very substantial savings - as very briefly outlined in paragraph 5.24 of the Draft DE Budget document. These proposed savings represent 18.5%, 45%, 49%, and 58% of the total savings proposed by the Minister – rising to £180 million in Year 4, nearly one-fifth of the total ASB. The Committee remains very concerned with the level of these direct Schools’ Budget Savings Proposals and some Members questioned how this sits with the Minister’s key priority in her Draft Budget of protecting front line services (schools) as far as possible. As for putting ‘in place plans across the Education Sector to reshape the schools provisions through rationalisation and restructuring’ (paragraph 5.24) to deliver these substantial savings, the Committee was informed that ‘there are no detailed plans or timescales in place for this work’ and with the ‘complexity of the issues involved ... it will take some time to deliver results’. With the lack of consideration of planning assumptions, estimates or any information on potential job savings through severance/redundancy across the education workforce at this stage, a number of Committee Members remained very concerned with these ASB proposed cuts. Some Members pointed to Years 2-4 of the ASB as an area which needs support from the potential additional revenue sources [£800million] identified in the Executive’s Draft Budget. 12. The Committee highlights below, what it sees as the key points and concerns raised by Stakeholders during the Committee for Education’s Stakeholder Event on the Draft Education Budget on 9 February 2011 and recommends that the proposals should be proactively followed-up and considered by the Department of Education as potential measures to assist management of the forthcoming education budget constraints: (a) The Association of Chief Executives of Education and Library Boards raised four key areas where it considered cost reductions could assist the protection of frontline services: Local Management of Schools (LMS) – Freeze present surpluses that exist for schools; seek to manage the costs of the teaching cohort by setting the Pupil/Teacher Ratio (PTR) and funding costs for teachers from centre. “At a time of austerity we do not feel that the continued operation of LMS in its present form is the most appropriate way forward, and what we would be suggesting as an Association would be that we would seek to freeze the present surpluses that exist for schools for the benefit of the schools at a point in time into the future; but as in the interim as we move forward from here that we would seek to actually manage the cost of teaching cohort especially within schools from the centre, and in terms reverting back to a former process of setting the PTR and the number of recognised teachers in schools at the centre, and funding the actual costs of the teachers from the centre.” Special Education – Need to reassess and reduce the bureaucracy associated with SEN, particularly the statementing process:
Capital – Major backlogs on maintenance and minor works, so Boards propose to limit this investment in schools recognised as approved for new builds, with the exception of the requirement to cover Health & Safety needs; but can’t wait indefinitely as schools must be fit for purpose. Other capital requirements within schools – buses, ICT, etc.
Reorganisation of services – Boards in favour of a single authority and avoiding compulsory redundancies. “Boards spend in terms of central administration around £25million together” “We did issue recently a call for voluntary severance amongst the Boards, 450 staff across the five Boards said they were interested, that doesn’t say they will all go, but you can see that within the sector if we can manage going forward in a planned way it is possible through voluntary redundancy to actually change and transform services without the need for compulsory redundancy. We welcome the £25million the Department has made available to Boards and we are surely in the situation where we are likely to spend the vast majority of that in terms of reorganisation and voluntary severance.” “ [under the current Voluntary Severance Programme] I think we are looking of somewhere between 150-200 posts possibly being suppressed across the five Boards” “Boards are on record of being in favour of a single authority, however we understand that in achieving that there are legitimate interests of the various stakeholders that need to be protected in legislation, and we know where the current bill sits and we hope for a political consensus to emerge at some stage around that issue” (b) Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) ‘Capital budget should be re-structured to explicitly support the new priorities and to deliver a more economic school estate through a revision of the Sustainable Schools policy’ (Briefing Paper) . ‘urgent need to review the LMS budget formula’ and ‘more effectively encourage collaboration and promoting the principles of accountable autonomy.’ (Briefing Paper) “I think what we need to do is change the formula which is used to fund schools because we have imbalances as things stand, but if we’ve got priorities LMS funding ought to be promoting those priorities, and we would certainly see the Entitlement Framework as one of those priorities, but the means to promote it need to be a little bit more challenging to schools to make sure the wider range of choice is made available to young people, so that the kinds of courses that are going to be needed to develop our economy are in place, and to do that in the current arrangements we have to have a degree of collaboration.” …… ‘Budget settlement must be robustly challenged and a strong case made for a significant increase and a managed transition to new arrangements’ (Briefing Paper) ‘We welcome some things in this Budget, and its difficult to take anything positive from it, but we do see that there is an attempt to rebalance the Budget and re-prioritise spending, particularly towards the Early Years in protecting the extended schools, in extending the range for free school meal entitlement. All of these things are addressing the more disadvantaged, more impoverished communities in our society and we think that that is a very important first step, but we see it only, very much, as a first step, and have said to achieve anything of significance there we need to be working with other partners’ (c) Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE) ‘NICIE calls for an independent commission which will seek ways of implementing the recommendations of the Bain Report and DE Sustainable schools policy’ (Briefing Paper). ‘We call for the immediate implementation of ESA or a similar single authority’. ( Briefing Paper) ‘NICIE welcomes the commitment to protecting Free School Meals and to Early Years in the proposed education budget.’ ( Briefing Paper) ‘Their [Integrated Schools] children travel some distance to avail of an integrated education and are dependent on school transport to do so. Were this to be withdrawn, then it would impact on parental choice and would further underpin the present unequal situation … [regarding] segregated choice’. ( Briefing Paper) ‘The implementation of Area Based Planning will enable an agreed rationalisation of the schools estate and mitigated against further segregation through sectoral rationalisation.’ ( Briefing Paper) (d) Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) ‘Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta has major concerns in relation to DE plans to reduce the ASB. A commitment to protect frontline services and staff will be meaningless in the face of the proposed cuts to the ASB ’ (Briefing Paper) “The Irish Medium Sector have been able to fund some capital projects that haven’t been funded by the Department but by the Irish Medium Trust, which have been able to be given effect to much more quickly and much more cheaply than going through the normal building handbook used by the Department. Obviously the standard might not be the exact same, nevertheless the school buildings are adequate for purposes, they’re high standard of school accommodation and they have a relatively long shelf life.” ‘Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta believes that significant savings can be made through the establishment of ESA’ ( Briefing Paper) ‘Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta supports the proposal to use capital budget to support the delivery of education’ ( Briefing Paper) (e) Governing Bodies Association NI (GBA) “The GBA support the case for an increased budget allocation for the Department of Education” (f) Northern Ireland Voluntary Grammar Schools’ Bursars Association (NIVGSBA) ‘We have significant concerns if the proposal is to restrict the provision of funding to parents who wish to send their child to a particular school which is not in their immediate locality’ (Briefing Paper) “Redundancy costs are critical and should be defined” ‘We have very serious reservations in regard to the establishment of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) as we believe it will not achieve the savings claimed.’ ( Briefing Paper) (g) Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL NI) Learning Environment for children – ‘If we are to continue to use older [school] facilities then a special maintenance fund must be set aside to allow essential work to keep these classrooms fit for purpose in the medium term. The procedures for accessing funding and getting work done should also be streamlined’ (Briefing Paper) Managing contraction of staffing – ‘Redundancy arrangements can place the burden on school budgets to fund severance/redundancy payments and long term actuarially reduced shortfalls. Measures need to be agreed to help school leaders mange the contraction of their staff through a careful costing of severance payments against budget savings and a clear decision making process by Compensating Authorities to support schools as Deciding Authorities’ (Briefing Paper) Entitlement Framework – “The pressure and the targets for entitlement and compliance for 2013 have now become economically unviable and are unrealistic. We would propose that the pressure for all schools to deliver 24/27 be relaxed, and that in the context of Area Learning Communities funding be targets on incentives to allow collaboration to deliver a wide range of courses, with schools specialising in courses they already have” (Frank Cassidy – Past President) ‘Collaboration between viable existing schools with their respective curricular orientations is a more realistic option’ (Briefing Paper) Substitute teacher cover arrangements – ‘The association would welcome an agreed, system wide arrangement for cover to allow for accurate financial planning and consistency of working practices in schools’ (Briefing Paper) “What we propose is an agreed system-wide arrangement for cover to allow for accurate financial planning and consistency of working practices in schools” “I have concerns when I hear proposals about eroding the voluntary principle which have been a very efficient financial delivery model in schools in Northern Ireland by centralising teaching costs.” (h) Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) “The Draft Budget lacks clarity in how the strategic priorities in education can be achieved against the backdrop of a number of things – there’s an absence of a workforce planning for schools for both teaching and non-teaching staff.” “We’re hearing some calls today for an ending to local management in schools, and we in the NAHT would be very opposed to that. We believe it’s a form of local democracy – it extends to schools powers to make their own decisions. We’ve heard very early today about maybe a centrally imposed Pupil/Teacher Ratio. Such centralism we’d be absolutely opposed to, schools have been making their own decisions about Pupil/Teacher Ratios over the years...” ‘There is a ’real’ need for a clearly envisaged future and strong demand for a single body that can plan and organise the changes required for an education system for the future.’ ( Briefing Paper) (i) Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) “ [For example] Young Enterprise (NI) is a voluntary organises which receives £650,000 of funding and it delivers business education programmes to 46,000 students in primary and post—primary schools across Northern Ireland. It succeeded all its targets and delivered a programme last year to 90,000 students, but where voluntary organisation quite often find themselves, at the end of March they don’t actually know where they stand. These sort of organisations don’t carry a lot of reserves and would therefore find it very difficult to take the risk as to what happens next, so they sit in quite often precarious positions even though they provide good added services to the education system.” 15 February 2011 |
