COMMITTEE FOR EDUCATION
OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)
Education Bill
01 April 2009
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Mervyn Storey (Chairperson)
Mrs Mary Bradley
Mr Trevor Lunn
Mr Nelson McCausland
Mr Basil McCrea
Miss Michelle McIlveen
Mr John O’Dowd
Mrs Michelle O’Neill
Witnesses:
Mr Gregory Butler ) Southern Education and Library Board
Mr David Cargo ) Belfast Education and Library Board
Mr Barry Mulholland ) Western Education and Library Board
Mr Stanton Sloan ) South Eastern Education and Library Board
Mr Gordon Topping OBE ) North Eastern Education and Library Board
The Chairperson (Mr Storey):
Gentlemen, you are most welcome to the Committee for Education; I am delighted that you are here. Gordon, I will hand over to you to make a presentation, after which members will ask questions.
Mr Gordon Topping OBE (North Eastern Education and Library Board):
Thank you for that welcome. We are delighted to join the Committee this morning to express our views on the Education Bill. I am sure that the date has nothing to do with your calling us today.
The Chairperson:
No, but it does have something to do with the Department officials who will follow you.
Mr Topping:
I assure you that everything that we have to say is serious.
The Committee received a response to the Bill from the boards. I will present the background issues and an overview, and my colleagues will provide some detail on the specific strategic issues that the Bill raises.
Since the announcement of the decisions associated with the review of public administration in November 2005, we have supported the proposed changes and worked co-operatively. Today, for example, part of our organisation has been hived off and is now part of the new Northern Ireland Library Authority. We assisted with that process and in the creation of the education and skills authority (ESA). We made proposals on how the ESA might be progressed and provided advice through various groups. Ultimately, all the changes must be to the benefit of the children and young people whom we serve.
Our support for a regional education authority was based on the need to create an all-inclusive authority that manages an education service, is cohesive rather than fragmented, and has the legal basis to ensure that it can manage the authority effectively — that means a regional service that is locally delivered. After all, the many different areas of Northern Ireland have different needs: inner-city Belfast, for example, has different needs from rural Fermanagh. We contend that services must be tailored to meet those disparate needs and that a regional service should be locally delivered.
Generally, children are at school for between six and seven hours a day for approximately 37 weeks each year. Over recent years, we have dramatically improved the outcomes for young people, but we recognise that many external factors affect schools’ performance. We must further improve educational outcomes, and that requires intervention not only in schools but on other issues. That leads us to the conclusion that a children’s services function must be developed.
Since we established our position, the political situation has moved on. For the Second Stage of the Bill, the Assembly has now committed to the principles enshrined in the Bill. Nevertheless, any new authority should be all-inclusive and incorporate all sectors; it should have the legal basis to manage the service effectively, have a children’s services function, and have a local dimension to facilitate the local delivery of a regional service.
Unfortunately, we see little or no mention of those issues in the Bill. Although it is important to get on with making changes — after all, four years have passed since the announcement was made in 2005 — it is also important to get them right. Clause 2(1), “Functions and general duty of ESA” states that the ESA has a duty to
“to promote, and co-ordinate the planning of, the effective provision of schools”.
However, it will have no responsibility for overall planning, and we see little difference between what is proposed and the present flawed system.
The legislation is complex and technical, and it requires the reader to know and understand previous legislation. The Bill is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to create Northern Ireland legislation for a Northern Ireland service, to consolidate education legislation, as was done in 1986, and simplify it. Unfortunately, that chance appears to have been missed.
Following that short introduction, I ask my colleagues to comment on specific issues in the Bill. Mr Cargo will lead on employment issues.
Mr David Cargo ( Belfast Education and Library Board):
Thank you, and good morning.
As our statement to the Committee makes clear, a single employer follows logically from a single authority. However, some clauses give us cause for concern.
The Education Reform ( Northern Ireland) Order 1989 created the concept of the employer and the employing authority; that has caused many problems in the system over the past 20 years, and we hoped that the Bill would clarify them. However, the Bill seems to perpetuate the confusion. The ESA is to be “the employing authority”, but clause 3(1) implies employer status. The former perpetuates the current problems; the latter simplifies the situation and, in effect, makes boards of governors subcommittees of the ESA under its control. There needs to be clarity on this issue and on contracts of employment and the liability associated with them.
Equality is at the heart of the Minister’s agenda, yet when dealing with the transfer of staff into the ESA, that principle appears to have been set aside. Staff are to be treated differently: civil servants are given preferential treatment over board staff and teachers are treated differently from other staff in schools. That needs to be resolved before the ESA is established.
Furthermore, the ESA implementation team (ESAIT) appears to have given little thought to how to minimize inequality of treatment once the ESA has been established. We are also unclear about how the qualifications that the Catholic sector requires of its teachers can be accommodated in a single organisation without giving rise to inequalities of treatment for teachers in the controlled sector. We welcome clause 11(5), which removes staffing costs from school budgets. We have long highlighted that as one of the main reasons for surpluses and deficits in the system. At present, budget management is too closely aligned to the age of teaching staff.
Finally, we are concerned at the proposals in clause 11 for voluntary grammar schools to pay staff. If one of the key drivers for the ESA is to achieve economies of scale in service delivery and thereby reduce costs, it is foolhardy and inefficient to consider such proposals to be enshrined in legislation.
Mr Topping:
We leave the employment issue and move to the role of the ESA in providing training and advisory services.
Mr Stanton Sloan (South Eastern Education and Library Board):
I would like to address clause 13, “ESA to provide or secure provision and advisory and support services for schools” and, to a lesser extent, clause 19. Clause 13 covers all staff in schools, teaching and non-teaching. Ordinarily, that would mean the Curriculum Advisory and Support Service (CASS); however, boards provide a range of other support and advisory services to schools: education welfare, educational psychology, services for child protection, peripatetic services, services of local management of schools officers who work with schools and help them with budgets and human resources and others. All those services are funded centrally but are provided directly to schools, so more than 90% of boards’ budgets go directly into schools; some 60% is delegated and 30% goes to services.
The class is seen by many as the mainstay, particularly because of its role in raising standards. Gordon referred in his introductory remarks to the need to raise the standards of achievement of young people all over the Province. For that reason, it is vital that there be a properly established and properly resourced support service that must be delivered locally — albeit managed regionally.
It would have certain statutory powers, which, we believe, are missing at the moment. I want to highlight three main points. First, clause 13 deals with providing or securing the provision of training. There is a concern that that will lead to the commissioning of services; services would no longer be centrally funded. A regional policy is necessary for regional initiatives such as literacy and numeracy, for example. Will there be a regional service or will the ESA simply commission services from private individuals or private bodies? We need clarification on that.
Secondly, clause 19 confers on the ESA the power to undertake commercial activities, and we would like clarity on whether that could be extended to schools. I am aware that, in certain areas in England, money that was held centrally was given to schools to purchase their own services or buy in services. In many cases in England, that was overturned because it was unsuccessful.
In Northern Ireland, and in my own board in particular where I have talked to principals — especially of small schools — the money that they get would not enable them to partake of the range of support services or training that they need. There is potential for misinterpretation and charging.
Thirdly, underachievement is something that engages us all. At the moment, the board, through its Curriculum, Advisory and Support Service and, indeed, through other services, has no statutory right to intervene in a school. We strongly believe that there should be a statutory basis for intervention when underachievement is identified in the school, either at individual teacher level, whole school level, or leadership level. Those are three key issues for the support services.
Mr Topping:
We move on from the support function of the ESA to the Youth Service, with which Barry Mulholland will deal.
Mr Barry Mulholland (Western Education and Library Board):
I want to raise two issues: the first may be considered a matter of semantics; the second is another opportunity lost. The first is youth services. Clauses 2 set out firmly that youth services are part of education, and that is welcomed by all those in the education and library boards and youth services. However, the fact that youth services are not incorporated in clause 2(2)(a), when clause (2)(2)(c) states:
“to promote, and co-ordinate the planning of, the effective provision of schools, educational services and youth services;”
is causing the Youth Service some concern. It believes, and we believe, that the Youth Service is set firmly in education of which it is an integral part. Rather than separate it out into clause 2(2)(b), youth services should be incorporated into clause 2(2)(a). That would firmly set youth services in the educational context.
Secondly, there is the opportunity lost. Clause 37 sets out clearly the powers of the Department to carry out inspections of educational establishments. The Education and Training Inspectorate perceives itself to be independent. However, the Bill could have legislated for the independence of the inspectorate because there is a potential conflict of interest as the inspectorate would be involved in the setting of policy and also in monitoring, inspecting, reviewing and reporting on that policy. An opportunity has been lost to establish in law the independence of the inspectorate in Northern Ireland.
Mr Topping:
Finally, we move to clauses 30 to 36, which deal with schemes and management for grant-aided schools, and Gregory Butler from the Southern Education and Library Board will deal with that issue.
Mr Gregory Butler (South Eastern Education and Library Board):
I will cover three main issues. The first relates to the timing and the establishment of schemes of management. There is an area of possible confusion when boards of governors, after 1 January 2010, operate under the existing scheme. To avoid that, we request that model schemes of management be in place at that date.
Clause 34 deals with proposals to place duties on boards of governors in relation to achievement of high standards of educational attainment. That is a significant change. Paragraph 7.2 of ‘Every School a Good School’ states that:
“Governors have a particularly important role to play by supporting and encouraging staff while at the same time taking on the role of a critical friend and encouraging the school in its quest for continuous improvement.”
It is important that that responsibility be set out clearly in a scheme of management.
The third area relates to community governors, which is in clause 35. Community governors are defined as persons living or working in the local community. Our concern is that that could be described as being suitably vague — or just vague. That description is an issue. There is also no indication about how governors are appointed, and that is a concern.
Mr Topping:
Those are the major issues that the Bill throws up for us. There are many other technical issues; for example, unless one reads the previous legislation and ties it together with the current legislation, it is very difficult to interpret exactly what is intended. Another issue is that the Bill is, in many places, enabling legislation: it enables things to happen. However, it is difficult for us to interpret the minds of the authors regarding what they intend to happen following the approval of the Bill.
We have tried to portray in our presentation that, first, we support the creation of a regional authority. Secondly, we have listed our areas of concern in the Bill, including the single employing authority, the support and role of the ESA, youth services, and, finally, governance of the service.
Thank you for listening to our presentation.
The Chairperson:
It is right and proper to pay tribute to the boards. One of the chief executives, Mrs McClenaghan, cannot be with us today because she retired yesterday. Gregory Butler is here today to represent the Southern Education and Library Board, but we wish Mrs McClenaghan the very best in her retirement.
It is also right and proper that we place on record our appreciation of the huge amount of work that the boards have done. As MLAs, we have all had the opportunity to interact with you, to challenge you, and to have various exchanges with you over the years. However, you have carried a huge responsibility, and it would be remiss of me, as the Chairperson of the Committee for Education, not to place on record our appreciation and thanks.
We welcome this opportunity to discuss the fundamental sea change in the governance arrangements of education for Northern Ireland; they will have huge implications for many years to come.
We will try to work within the remit that you have given us. In your presentations, you dealt specifically with the functions and general duty of the single employing authority. We will work our way through those issues so that we do not go from Dan to Beersheba, which is, at times, how we operate. However, that should in no way preclude any member from raising any issue.
There may be a typing error under “functions and general duty” because it says section 2, whereas it should be clause 2(1). In your submission, you said that there is a danger that the nature of the statutory function ascribed to the ESA will limit its ability to deliver effective service. How do you see that being rolled out in practice if and when the ESA comes into existence?
Mr Topping:
Thank you for your kind words about our work over the past 36 years; we very much appreciate them, and we will convey them to our staff and members.
One of our reasons for supporting a regional educational authority was that we know some of the problems that we faced in managing the service over the past 36 years. One of the major problems that we faced was planning — the planning of school provision in particular — the rationalisation of schools, supporting schools through resourcing them, or ensuring that new schools were built in the right place at the right time. We recognised all those problems.
When the proposal was made, we said that the new authority should have a clearly defined role in statute that would allow it to plan for school provision. Clause 2 states that ESA will “co-ordinate”. That is our role, and we know the problems that we face in co-ordinating with various other sectors that have responsibility for schools provision. It is very difficult.
We would like to see the responsibility laid on the ESA to plan effectively for the service in an all-inclusive authority. Schedule 7 proposes an amendment to article 14 of the Education and Libraries ( Northern Ireland) Order 1986, which reiterates the co-ordinating role of the ESA rather than its responsibility to ensure that the schools estate is planned effectively. That is one of the issues that we wish to highlight.
The Chairperson:
Would changing that not merely reduce the number of education and library boards without radically changing the function of an organisation to deliver the intended aim: raising standards?
Mr Topping:
That is a good question. There is a danger that all the Bill will do is get rid of five boards and one or two other bodies. Reading between the lines, and taking into account some of the discussions that we have had, leads us to conclude that the intention is not to get rid of five boards and a few other bodies but to reform the service radically in order to create efficiencies and to put school improvement as the key element on the agenda.
We support that; however, we have reservations about how it might be achieved and the legal basis underpinning it. We welcome the ESA’s intervention role; but, as one of my colleagues said, we feel that that intervention should be strengthened by legislation
The Chairperson:
David Cargo made what I thought was a worrying comment to the effect that the ESA makes the board of governors one of its sub-committees.
We are told that boards of governors will have control and new responsibilities, and Mr Butler mentioned the reconstitution of board of governors, but how do boards of governors feel about being sub-committees of a very centralised, bureaucratic organisation that holds all the control and power?
Mr Cargo:
We have tried to highlight the fudge at the heart of the Bill. When we were first engaged in discussions on the Bill, there was a possibility that each of the boards would speak to its own vested interests and say that it is important that it stayed in Belfast, Ballymena, Armagh or wherever.
We chose not to do that, and we engaged fully with the Department and the then Minister. We asked them to build something better than we had, which had the potential to become fragmented. There has been a fudge in the education system between, apparently, giving boards of governors more power — leading to fragmentation of the system — or centralising the service around the Minister and the Department, which would lead to greater coherence.
We were looking for clarity in the Bill about the direction in which we were heading, but we believe that the Bill has ducked the core issue. Certain consequences flow from being an employer that must be clearly identified in the Bill. There is potential for those to be included in the Bill, but the heading of the clauses relating to employment and the ESA refers to it as an “employing authority”. That has been part of the problem over the past 20 years in our dealings with boards of governors on employment issues. Boards of governors often claim that they are the employer and that the education and library board is only the employing authority; however, we have never been able to get legal clarity about the difference, and we were looking forward to that being provided by the Bill.
If the ESA is to be the single authority, it would be the employer, and boards of governors would become its subcommittees; however, if that is not the direction in which the Committee or the Minister want to go, the Bill must make it clear whether alternative arrangements are available. At present, the Bill is neither one nor the other, and it replicates the difficult situation in which education and library boards have to fund legal cases — when they are settled — on behalf of the maintained sector. However, we have no role in trying to moderate or to play an intervening role in ensuring that best practice is followed. That is no criticism of the CCMS; it is a reality of the present fudged system.
For the first time in a generation, we have a Northern Ireland Bill for Northern Ireland’s system rather than a pick-and-mix Bill from England that we would have to adapt. We hoped that the Bill would have clarified those issues and provided clear policy directions.
The Chairperson:
Woolworth’s has closed down, so we thought we had done away with the days of pick-and-mix; perhaps that is not the case.
From what Mr Cargo said, even with the system that we have had for 36 years, there has been no real clarity about employers and employing authorities. It seems that we are heading into the abyss. The Northern Ireland Commission for Catholic Education and the GBA say that they want to be employers. Mr Cargo talked about the ESA being the single employing authority and expressed the concerns of education and library boards about how it would operate under the draft legislation.
The Committee should take legal advice on the employers’ status vis-à-vis the ESA and boards of governors, because the more we delve into this and ask questions, the more confused I become. I just do not know sometimes where it is all going, and there seems to be no clarity. The issues are shrouded in mist.
The education and library boards have had to administer all that for the past 36 years, and all we would be doing is transferring that responsibility to Gavin Boyd and the ESA. If, however, that arrangement were to be challenged, we would have a problem. Then we would see who would pick up the legal fees and the fall-out as a result. Is that a fair comment?
Mr Topping:
We are saying two things. First, if we are to have a regional education authority, it makes sense to have a regional employing authority or a regional employer. That is logical. If we do that, however, we must have clarity about the relationship between that authority and the boards of governors on employment terms.
The Chairperson:
I will now open the discussion to members. There is so much that we have to cover, and I want to give as much time to this important issue as possible.
Mr Elliott:
Thank you very much, gentlemen. The Chairperson is right that there is so much to go through. David raised the issue surrounding the employment authority, and that is not the first time that that point has been raised with the Committee. Indeed, as has been said, it seems to be getting even more confusing.
The Chairperson’s expression of thanks for all the work that the boards have done over the years sounded almost like a swansong. I do not want it to sound as though this is the last time that we will hear from the boards or lobby them.
The Chairperson:
No; it will not be the last time that we write to them. [Laughter.]
Mr Elliott:
There is clearly a lot of work to be done before the ESA comes in, if, indeed, it ever does; I put down that marker, given the way things are going and what the Committee has heard. How are the boards going at the moment? I understand, from talking to staff, that boards have some concerns about their future. The boards thought that they were planning to move on fairly soon, but that has not happened.
Gordon, you said that you find it difficult to interpret what is in the minds of the authors of the Bill. The authors of the Bill sit at the end of this table every week, and we cannot interpret what is in their minds either. It would be much easier if we could, but we cannot. Those people are sitting behind you, and we will hear from them later.
Let me be blunt; we keep being told that it is not the Bill’s intention to do this or it is the Bill’s intention to do that. However, legal people tell us that we can deal only with what we see in front of us — if something is in the Bill, it is in the Bill; if it is not, it is not. The difficulty is that we cannot go on impressions or what we believe the situation should be.
I do not know whether you can help me on this, but one point that has not been touched on is the huge financial savings that we are told will be generated by the move from five boards to the ESA. I am concerned that some autonomy will be lost. No disrespect to David or Gordon, but it is often rural communities — and the Southern Board and, particularly, the Western Board — that lose out when things are moved to one central body. Do you think that real savings will be made, and, if so, where do you see them being made; in administration, perhaps?
Has there been any discussion of how the transfer of staff from the boards to the ESA will evolve?
Mr Topping:
Mr Elliott has asked three questions. Each situation is different, so would you like us to give a brief round-robin update of the state of play in each of the boards?
The Chairperson:
Yes, but I would like something to be clarified before we move on. Gordon, am I right in saying that the existing boards could not be reconstituted if the ESA is not introduced as of 1 January 2010? The life of the boards has already been extended by six months, and departmental officials have told the Committee that the intention is that the ESA will come into effect on 1 January 2010 but that it may be 1 April 2010. There may be legal issues around that.
Mr Topping:
We have asked that question, but we have not been given a specific answer. I know that my chairman asked that question of the Minister at the last meeting of the chairs of the boards.
The Chairman:
We could perhaps ask the Department that question.
Mr Topping:
You might want to do that. However, you are right that the life of the boards has been extended by six months until the end of December.
Would you like us to start that quick round-robin update?
The Chairperson:
Yes, that would be very helpful.
Mr Mulholland:
We are working in a very challenging environment, but I would not describe it as a crisis; our service delivery is nowhere near crisis level. The main difficulty that the Western Board is experiencing relates to the vacancy-control policy and the fact that it has been operating since late 2006. We are bringing in arrangements to replace staff who are moving out of the service with new temporary staff or staff who are acting up. The staff have responded extremely well, and we continue to deliver our services at the highest level possible.
One of the concerns for staff in the west is the Belfast-centric nature of jobs that are being advertised in the ESAIT. Up until yesterday, all the ESAIT jobs were based in Belfast. The ESAIT has tried to arrange for staff to work remotely for one day a week or so, but that still requires post holders from the west to spend an hour and a half travelling to and from Belfast in order to get to work. That leaves them feeling disadvantaged and that they are unable to apply for jobs in ESAIT, the organisation that is starting to form the new ESA, which will, therefore, leave them disadvantaged in the future. However, Western Board staff are certainly rising to the challenge, and they are continuing to deliver services.
Mr Sloan:
Chairperson, you commended us for the work that we have done. I am sure that my colleagues will want to join me in commending our staff for the outstanding work that they have done in extremely challenging and difficult circumstances.
However, the South Eastern Board would present a slightly different picture, because we are close not only to the ESAIT’s headquarters, but also to those of NILA. NILA has its own administrative staff, and, from today, is a free-standing authority.
The South Eastern Board is still rising to the challenge, but I must tell the Committee that there is a human cost. Fewer people are doing more work, and I see what that costs. Staff are doing that work well and they step up to the mark day after day, but I fear that, in years to come, we will all be held to account for the human cost.
Vacancy control is a major factor. We can, of course, replace staff, but we cannot replace their skills. When staff go, we bring in agency or temporary staff who require two, three or four months of training, particularly in areas such as finance and human resources. That presents a challenge, and that is when other staff step up to the mark. However, our board has lost something — more than 40% of our staff are now on temporary contracts of one form or another. Some are agency staff, while others are acting up to higher posts — sometimes they act up, and then move up again and again.
That is also an issue because if people are acting up to two or three levels above their current grade, I understand that, under The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE), when they move to the ESA they will revert to their substantive grade. That touches on another question that Mr Elliott asked. Some of those staff have been doing jobs two grades up for the past two or three years, and they have clearly developed expertise. They are moving out of the education sector because they have worked at that higher level and are attracted to substantive posts in some other authority.
There are challenges, but, like Barry said, we are not in crisis. However, I am concerned about the well-being of staff.
Mr Topping:
Gregory will describe the situation in the Southern Board.
Mr G Butler:
Not unsurprisingly, our situation is quite similar to the situation in the west. A vacancy-control policy is in place and has had an impact, but because many of the jobs are based in Belfast or the greater Belfast area, we have not experienced the same loss of staff as the South Eastern Board or the Belfast Board. Therefore, the impact of vacancy control is a particular issue.
Our board is also in the fortunate position of being in an area that has a rising population, and it will continue to rise considerably over the next few years. That means that our budget is very good, which affords us some flexibility that other boards may not have because the populations that they serve are declining.
For senior staff in the board such as myself, travelling is not an issue, but it is an issue for administrative staff whose families live in the area and who would have difficulty meeting the cost of any move. Therefore, travel and the future location of jobs are particular concerns for staff in our board. As it develops, ESA must ensure that those people who have given very good service for the past 20 or 30 years are not disadvantaged by the relocation of jobs away from their area.
There is a positive aspect in that our board is operating very well at present. We have a number of acting-up posts, but the overall position is very good. However, there is a major concern about the long-term position, and, from a morale point of view, that is sometimes a very difficult issue.
I thank the Chairperson for his comments about Helen McClenaghan. I will pass them on to her when I see her next week. We bid her farewell yesterday. She did a lot in the board, but she has left a very solid ship, and Tony Murphy will take that forward and we will continue to progress.
Mr Cargo:
Belfast is, I suppose, used to providing services in challenging circumstances. We did it for 30 years during a period of quite difficult conflict in the city. In more recent years, we have had our challenges, and we have continued to meet them. So, the services continue to run. There is no service diminution.
I echo my colleagues’ comments about vacancy control, and I will highlight two issues. Very often those caught in the vacancy-control arrangements are young staff who are, perhaps, starting out on careers and attempting, in even the current difficult circumstances, to get rented property or to get on the mortgage ladder. However, because they are temporary ― albeit temporary in permanent positions, because we do not see those posts going anywhere, even under the ESA ― they are unable to access some of those services, and that is a particular difficulty for young people in the current situation.
The second issue is certainly a concern for us in Belfast. We have just transferred 1,000 staff among the five boards to NILA. We know the amount of work that that has required, which is in addition to everyone’s duties. We have 50,000 staff to transfer to the ESA in a very short time. With the volume of work associated with that, I think that it will be extremely challenging to continue to run the existing high-quality services and provide for the transfer of assets, staff and everything else to a new organisation in a very short period of time.
Mr Topping:
From our point of view, there are two issues. The first is that uncertainty creates morale issues, and, unfortunately, for three years now there has been uncertainty. So, our message would be: it is important to get it right, but it is important to create certainty in the system. Secondly, like the other boards, 30% of our staff are in temporary positions. That is not sustainable in the longer term.
If I may pick up on the other two questions. First, an outline business case, which the Committee has probably seen, demonstrates savings of, I believe, £20 million in the third year. We have no reason to dispute those figures. It is obvious that, when organisations are brought together, the number of people managing that service will be automatically reduced. For example, if there are five of us and only one is needed in the longer term, there are obvious savings.
However, I would guess that the main savings will be made after the creation of the ESA, because, at that stage, services will be reorganised, and, again, that will bring management savings. That creates all kinds of challenging issues that need to be addressed and managed. However, we would certainly concur that there will be financial savings because of the way in which the system moves.
With regard to staff transfer, if the ESA is formed and created in exactly the same way as the Library Authority, I would have to say that, up to this point, that was done very smoothly, and staff were very satisfied about the way in which they were consulted and dealt with. However, the ESA throws up issues that the Library Authority perhaps does not.
Gregory mentioned the major issue, which is location. One must remember that 70% of our staff are women, so there is a gender issue in all of this. They are working where they are working because their families are close by. I think that centralising services, as distinct from regionalising them, will cause some problems, and will, I would guess, require significant discussion and negotiation with staff.
Those are the types of issues that Mr Elliott’s questions throw up.
Mr Cargo:
I would like to reinforce the issue that we highlighted in the initial presentation, which concerns equality. Because of section 75, we are in a different situation as regards how staff are transferred than we perhaps would have been in the past. We are concerned that, because certain processes were used in the past for certain types of staff — for example, civil servants who were seconded into a new organisation — people will say that that should continue because that is the way it has always been done. If we are moving to create a new organisation, every member of staff needs to be placed on the same footing.
There is a precedent within the education and library boards. In 1997, we transferred staff to further education, where there was a number of posts in our central headquarters. We could have operated a secondment arrangement because the board was not going away. We trawled those jobs in advance so that people were defined as transferring on a particular date to the new organisation. We would emphasise that it is important that no group of staff anywhere feels either advantaged or disadvantaged by the arrangements. We fear that, at the moment, that approach is not being taken. Therefore, the sound basis of equality for staff transfer will be diminished.
Mr Topping:
The recruitment, retention and voluntary severance (RRVS) paper, which is currently out for consultation, is pertinent to the discussion. I am sure that you are aware of it. Staff are very concerned about that, mainly because of the reasons that David has outlined and also because the criteria that are being used in that paper to allow staff to apply for jobs in the second tier, and probably the third tier, are such that they exclude staff from applying, rather than include them. We have made the case that any recruitment procedure should be inclusive, rather than exclusive.
The Chairperson:
We will ask the departmental officials to comment on that when they appear before the Committee later.
Mr Elliott:
Savings from middle management are estimated at 25%. Is that reasonable and practical in real terms, especially considering the inflation costs of wages? That will probably mean a reduction in staff of around a third.
Mr Topping:
I do not think that we can answer that, because it depends on how the organisation takes forward its structure.
Mr Cargo:
As Stanton pointed out at the beginning, although the current funding arrangement includes around 60% of funding that goes directly to schools, many of the other services that we provide, such as the psychology service, educational welfare, transport service and school meals, are provided directly to schools — those are all provided directly to children.
The budget of each board’s headquarters is £5 million, so £25 million will be saved from the headquarters alone. In the first instance, any transition will include those savings. As Gordon said, although we have no reason to dispute the business case because it has been set out by the ESA and by the Department, as we see it at the moment, and given that not much redesign of services is proposed in advance of the establishment of the ESA, most of the burden will fall on the headquarters’ services. In total, that is a figure of £25 million.
The Chairperson:
What has been the interaction and interplay between the ESA, in its current form as an interim arrangement, and you as working chief executives who are responsible for your boards? Are you happy that the ESA, in its current form, has taken a hands-on approach and that you have a working knowledge and understanding of what is happening?
The transition from the library boards to a single service seemed to go reasonably well, and I suspect that you had a close working relationship with those involved in that transition. Is that being replicated with the transition to the ESA, or do you feel as though, as Tom said, there is a swansong and that the ESA, in its current form, may say that the boards will not be in existence from a certain date and that, therefore, any advice that you might give is of little relevance?
Mr Topping:
Different Departments do things in different ways, and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure has certainly worked in a different way from the Department of Education. The five of us who are present today all sit on a transition board with the Department and the ESAIT, and we have contributed to those discussions. As well as that, all the staff who have been involved in working groups and various kinds of planning groups have said that they appreciated the communication that has gone on.
However, the expertise that we have has perhaps not been fully utilised. We have seconded staff to the ESAIT; for example, as you know, my chief finance officer has been seconded, and other boards have also contributed in that way. When it comes to the main business of the ESA, which is the educational function, I think that there will be a demand on our staff to provide expertise and advice — I hope that we can meet that demand.
Mr O’Dowd:
I have read the Bill on several occasions, and I do not see it stated anywhere in it that the headquarters of the ESA will be in Belfast. That is one area of concern that can perhaps be clarified today. It does not state in the Bill where the headquarters will be, and, given recent reports about decentralisation from Belfast, I might conclude that it will not be in Belfast.
I understand that there is a need for careful liaison between staff representatives, the Department and the ESA to ensure that there is consultation with staff on transfer, etc. As we have seen in other major developments — [Interruption.]
I am sorry, Chairman, I can not hear a word that I am saying.
The Chairperson:
Could we have silence, please?
Mr O’Dowd:
We have seen with the transfer of staff in the Health Service that that can be managed, but it must be managed carefully.
David, I will not quote you directly, but you said that there was a possibility that boards of governors would become subcommittees of the ESA. Would that be a bad thing or a good thing?
Mr Cargo:
I hope that John was not precluding Belfast from the discussions on the implementation of the recommendations of the Bain Report on the relocation of public sector jobs, or precluding a fair equality assessment.
Mr O’Dowd:
There speaks a Belfast man.
Mr Cargo:
I got the impression that anywhere but Belfast seemed to be the conclusion. My staff would be gravely concerned if that were the case, as would the board members.
Mr Topping:
On the other hand, at least four of us here support you on that. [Laughter.]
Mr Cargo:
Unfortunately, that has been part of the problem over the past number of years, in relation to funding and all sorts of things. What I was trying to point out was that there is a logic to the current single authority having employing functions. It is logical that there should be an employer.
Before 1989, boards of governors were originally management committees of the board. The 1989 Order changed that function, because it established local management of schools. In our view, when establishing that, the Order did not clarify the relationship between boards of governors, the employers and the employing authorities. We had hoped that the Bill would clarify that.
It is not for me to comment on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. In our opinion, at the moment, the Bill continues the fudge that was evident in what was not a particularly good piece of legislation — the 1989 Order. We saw the Bill as an opportunity to clarify that, and to get a clear policy direction on how the service would go forward. We see logic in having a single employing authority, and that has obvious consequences for governors. We accept that not everyone favours that direction, but the Bill needs to provide clarity so that it does not perpetuate what, in our opinion, is a very inefficient fudge in the current legislation.
Mr O’Dowd:
I want to tease the matter out. Are you referring specifically to the employment role rather than the day-to-day running of the schools? Is that the focus of your concern?
Mr Cargo:
Yes; one part of the Bill seems to infer that boards of governors would operate under the direction of the ESA, whereas other parts seem to infer that boards of governors would have maximum supported autonomy, which was one of the original concepts. We feel that the Bill, in its current format, does not clarify that matter sufficiently but, in fact, perpetuates a fudge that was created by the 1989 Order and that was not helpful in the situation. That needs to be clarified.
It is a political decision as to whether to select autonomy and, therefore, potentially greater fragmentation, or to select cohesion and, therefore, potentially greater centralisation. The Bill must clarify that position before it becomes law. If it does not, you will end up in the situation in which we found ourselves whereby the position is not clear. Moreover, the issue is further compounded by the fact that the 1989 Order says that we can go into schools only by invitation. It is testimony to the skills of our officers that we have never been refused entry to a school. However, the Bill must clarify those issues and outline clearly the direction that the political system wants education to take.
The Chairperson:
The Committee is at a stage where it is focusing on particular clauses. Clause 8 says that the ESA cannot lawfully refuse to put into effect any proper decision of a board of governors on employment matters. Do you think that a model employment scheme and guidance, an independent appeals system or some regulation and control built into the Assembly and the institutions here would be sufficient to address the issues of concern? The Committee has asked that question of the CCMS, the Catholic bishops and the GBA. At this stage, we still do not know who would represent a school legally in the High Court in the event of a dispute.
Mr Cargo:
I have no legal competence. As Gordon said, part of the problem is that the Bill must be read in conjunction with other legislation. Other legislation provides the Department with powers to intervene. For example, article 158 of the 1989 Order currently allows it to intervene. That is why we mentioned a lost opportunity. We had an opportunity to create an education Bill that combined all the system’s powers, responsibilities and entitlements. I do not have an opinion on whether that would sort out the situation.
The Chairperson:
How different is article 158 to article 101 of the Education and Libraries ( Northern Ireland) Order 1986?
Mr Topping:
It is much more wide-ranging.
The Chairperson:
That is new to the Committee. Part of the problem is that there are 11 other pieces of subordinate legislation. It is like an onion; one continually peels, and people’s eyes water every time it is brought into the room. Article 158 is another of the Department’s current powers.
Mr Topping:
I think that article 158 is the amendment to article 101. The Department could, perhaps, clarify that matter.
The Chairperson:
Are you saying that article 158 and article 101 might be the same?
Mr Cargo:
Article 158 contains greater powers than article 101.
Mr Topping:
The answer to many of the questions being asked is that it depends on what type of education system one wants. It is a choice between a service that is totally delegated with autonomy in schools or one that is centrally controlled. That is a decision that the Committee and the Minister must make.
The Chairperson:
As practitioners who came through some 30 years of difficulties and challenges, what type of service do you think is best for education? Please remove us politicians from the equation, as people are fed up with our meddling and interference. I realise that opinions may differ, but it would be valuable to hear if you feel that one is preferable to or has advantages over another.
Mr Cargo:
I have 36 years’ experience in the education service, 25 years of which have been served in education and library boards. I may be straying into the area of vested interests, but one of the strengths of the board system — which I have seen in Belfast and in other areas over the years, and during very difficult and challenging times — is that is all interests are representing in one room. Therefore, if an issue comes to the floor of the board, vested interests cannot rule supreme, and there is a moderating influence on all the various sectors.
We felt that one of the reasons for moving to a single authority was that all the vested interests would be represented under it and nowhere else. However, the Bill appears to give vested interests — and I use that in the best sense of the word — separate bodies to represent them. Therefore the cohesion that we have valued in the system appears to be in danger of fragmenting. My fear, as I approach the end of my career in education, is that we will end up with a more fragmented system with less opportunity to drive standards up.
Mr Topping:
I agree with that, but I would go a little further. Some people have called me a control freak, which is, of course, completely wrong —
The Chairperson:
Gordon I could never call you that —
Mr Toping:
I support delegation to schools because decision making should be given to those who must pay the consequences. The present system is a mix-and-match: some responsibility is delegated and some is not. Therein lies the difficulty, because some of those who make decisions do not have to pay for the consequences of those decisions.
We had hoped, in line with the concept of maximum supported autonomy — or accountable autonomy as it now is — that functions would be delegated to schools allowing them to make decisions and be accountable and responsible for them. The role of the ESA in monitoring and co-ordinating that will be very important and it must ensure that those schools are held accountable for whatever they achieve. I do not know whether anyone else would agree or disagree.
Mr Sloan:
To put it in a nutshell, of the £250 million budget that the South Eastern Education and Library Board receives, £160 million is delegated to schools under local management of schools. We are held accountable for the whole budget, yet we have no control over £160 million of it. I agree with Gordon: if you are going to delegate, the money and the accountability must also be delegated.
The other issue relates to what boards actually do, although I do not know whether my colleagues will agree with me on that. I am a firm believer that form should follow function. The purpose of boards is to raise educational standards; if we get that right, the structure can be designed around it.
It is still a cause of great personal regret that there are no educationalists on the implementation team to drive educational policy. That policy should be driving the structures that are to be put in place and what is, or is not, delegated.
Mr Mulholland:
I agree. There are concerns about the potential for fragmentation in the service. With regard to accountable autonomy, the ESA’s role in monitoring what is going on must be matched by a power to intervene when it sees something inappropriate that impacts on standards.
Mr G Butler:
Considering the situation pre-1989, there was an issue concerning the need to build the capacity of boards of governors. Although there may be a large capacity in certain areas — and the strong will survive and the weak will go to the wall — in some rural areas there are problems with developing supported autonomy and getting the right people to implement it. There is a difference between fragmentation and centrality, and that is not an easy circle to square.
Over the past 30 years, support from the boards has been indispensable in making the system work; the degree of hand-holding that goes on to stop people going over the precipice cannot be underestimated. Support services have helped. A balance must be struck between providing support and capacity building, which is not a cheap option. In order to develop the skills of governors and of boards of governors, one must invest in people at grass roots. At the same time, one must develop a central vision for education that everyone can share. That is not a cheap or an easy balance to strike.
The Chairperson:
Other members will probably raise this matter, but I wish to put it on the table before inviting questions from them. As chief executives of the boards, you have had the primary responsibility for the controlled sector. It is a huge issue, so I want to spend some time on it. Speaking as a member of the DUP, not as the Chairperson of the Committee, the controlled sector is important to us, and the proposals for it present a huge problem that must be satisfactorily resolved.
Mrs M Bradley:
I welcome the witnesses, and I associate myself with the Chairperson’s remarks about the work of the boards. For many years, I served on the Western Education and Library Board, so I know that it has always done excellent work and stood by schools, all of which, maintained and controlled, will miss its services.
I too have grave concerns, which I have raised in the Committee, about the situation of governors. I am deeply concerned about getting current governors to return. Schools cannot operate without their boards of governors.
I am concerned too that responsibility for youth services will remain with the Department of Education. They should not become a separate matter; they should remain attached. Gordon, are you confident that the ESA, as it is proposed, can deliver the enhanced services?
Mr Topping:
That is a difficult question, because we do not know exactly what the ESA will look like; the process is evolving. Although we support the establishment of a regional education authority, we know the flaws in the system; we have worked that flawed system for 36 years. Whatever the ESA may look like, we hope that it is better than what we have now.
We have highlighted some of our concerns about aspects of the Bill, and we hope that they can be amended. However, we do not know whether they can be changed, because all kinds of interests are at play. Nevertheless, once all those matters have been resolved and consensus has been reached, we hope that the structure and organisation of the ESA will be better than what we have now.
Mr Lunn:
I share Mary’s concerns about the ability of schools to attract governors in future, not because of the rules of employment but because of the more onerous duties that they will have to undertake and the training and, perhaps, qualifications that they will need. Put simply, boards of governors may be sued without being able to rely on the ESA to pick up the bill.
I hesitate to cross swords with 150 years’ experience.
Mr Topping:
That is only what it looks like.
Mr Lunn:
I pitched it low.
Mr Elliott:
Which of the witnesses did you mean? [Laughter.]
Mr Lunn:
The heading of clause 3, “ESA to employ all staff of grant-aided schools”, is the only reference that I can see to the ESA being the single employing authority. I know that you have done your best to explain it to me, but try again. What is the difference between an employing authority and an employer? Given that the ESA will undertake both those roles, how could it not be liable for the bill for a successful action that a teacher took against a school? How could the bill be delegated to the board of governors?
Mr Topping:
There are two questions there. One relates to the recruitment and expertise of governors, and Mr Sloan will deal with that. The other question is about employing authority versus employer, and Mr Cargo will deal with that. I look forward to hearing the answers. [Laughter.]
Mr Sloan:
We have 80 years’ experience. I want to place on record the commitment of unpaid governors. I have met and worked with many governors, and their commitment and support to staff, principals and pupils is immeasurable. I am sure that you all agree.
Many governors are aware that the ESA is being introduced and of potential changes. We are beginning the process of recruiting again, and we are writing to bodies; however, it is difficult to be precise about what the response will be. I have been to 10 to 15 schools in the past weeks, and governors raised concerns about where they will stand in relation to a single authority and what support will be given to them. Governors want to know whether they will need someone with an accountancy or legal background on their board, for example. A great deal will be lost if boards of governors become less caring and more mechanistic.
Clarification on the recruitment and expertise of boards of governors goes back to the employing authority and the employer role and what they will pick up. At present, education and library boards indemnify boards of governors. I love the phrase “cavalierly disregard”, although it is not used in legislation now. Provided that boards of governors did not “cavalierly disregard” the rules, the education and library boards would support them. That needs clarification.
Mr Cargo:
Since 1989, we have been asking for clarification on the differences between employer and employing authority, but it is difficult to get legal clarification. There is, perhaps, a slight misunderstanding. The problem with liability goes with who holds the contracts of employment. With regard to managing risk and liabilities in the current system, one always tries to minimise the possibility of having to pay out large sums of money for the sins of the boards of governors or individual members of a board.
In certain sectors, education and library boards are liable for paying out the money, but we cannot intervene to ensure the highest standards of practice.
Mr Lunn:
I got that earlier.
Mr Cargo:
We were hoping that the Bill would remove the confusion and that, as single authority, the ESA would be the single employer. Therefore the nuances and confusion of the present legislation would be clarified and boards of governors would be in a new relationship with the single body. It would be as it was pre-1989, and the boards of governors would, in fact, become sub-committees of the ESA. The authority would not only have the liability — and that would be clear — but it would have responsibility to ensure that the highest standards of best practice were employed in all boards of governors.
In certain circumstances that may appear draconian; however, it is a logical follow-on from a single authority. If that is not the political will, then you are moving onto the issue, as Stanton said, of the importance of boards of governors.
It is important that we seriously question the composition of boards of governors before the Bill is enacted. Important though boards of governors are, we are putting almost £1 billion of public money into the hands of volunteers. Those volunteers have many strengths, but if we are to give them greater responsibilities, there are issues around the composition of boards. Where autonomy is allied with accountability, that needs to be clearly thought through before a Bill is enacted under which it will be OK to heap more on volunteers. Although those volunteers invest innumerable hours in the system, there may not be — or, as Gregory says, in certain rural areas there may never be — the quality of governors required to do what the system wants them to do.
Mr Lunn:
Can I take it from that that you do not have a problem with the liability question? Does the Bill make it clear who would accept liability?
Mr Cargo:
It appears to be clear by default. In such a situation, I assume that people would co-join the board of governors and the ESA. Therefore, in certain situations as a last resort, the ESA, as the public body, would pay. We should be more proactive and give the employing body responsibility and accountability for ensuring the highest standards of practice. That would minimise liability in certain situations, which cannot be done at the moment.
Mrs M Bradley:
Will there be a weakness in the system if we wait until all the changes come in and then try to bring in new governors? Should we not have new governors applying now to be trained and brought up to the required standard? I have a feeling that many of the governors already in place in schools have served for several years and do not want to serve again. What happens if a school cannot get enough people at that late stage?
Mr Topping:
That is exactly what we are trying to do: we are trying to widen the expertise and we are alerting potential governors to the fact that the role is very wide and will become wider. For example, when we write to nominating bodies, which we have to do under present legislation, we alert them to the sort of expertise that might be valuable on a governing body. That does not necessarily mean that we will get everybody we would like on all governing bodies. That is part of the issue that you raised and part of the issue that we have to face. It comes back, I think, to the point that David made: how do we ensure that those people are well trained and up to speed with what is going on? That is a massive task because there are thousands of governors.
The Chairperson:
The Northern Board in particular is concerned that the schemes of management are not fit for purpose. That is why it would be helpful if we could see what was proposed as an off-the-shelf scheme of management for the ESA; at present, we do not know if that even exists. That is something that perhaps we should ask the ESA.
Mr Topping:
That is the timing issue that Gregory mentioned.
Mr Mulholland:
One school might use an off-the-shelf scheme of management and another devise its own. The same governor could serve on the boards of two schools that operated two different schemes of management.
Mr Lunn:
I ask everyone this question, but I have been waiting for you guys to come along because I am interested in your view. Members are sniggering because they know what I am going to say. You have the experience of operating boards that are composed in a particular way. Is it desirable for the ESA to be composed of a governing body dominated by local councillors?
The Chairperson:
When is your next board of governors meeting, Gordon?
Mr Topping:
I do not know why I sat in the middle. [Laughter.] We have councillors on our boards at the moment. As the Committee knows, 40% of our boards consist of elected representatives. I think that David said that we support the composition of our boards 100% because they contain all the stakeholders in different proportions.
Over the time that I have been involved, party politics has come to the fore only very rarely; what does come to the fore is community politics, and interesting alliances have formed to tackle problems. I hope that that could be the model for the ESA. Stakeholders should be around the table so that they can influence things and work together in the spirit of partnership for the benefit of all the young people that they serve.
Mr Lunn:
The difference is between 40% and a majority of one.
Mr Topping:
I appreciate that, but I do not think that the principle changes.
Mr Cargo:
I concur with that view. The balances are less important than the fact that all the interests feel that they have a representative voice in the decision-making body. It may be fashionable to think of smaller boards, and those could work in certain circumstances; however, we said from the outset that the education and skills authority is a regional service locally delivered. The local dimension in education is crucial in driving up standards and sustaining communities across the region.
It must be ensured that the people who serve centrally can also bring a sub-regional dimension into discussions. When I came to Belfast, I thought that there would be cohesion, but Belfast is made up of a series of urban villages. We have strength in relation to our decision making because different political parties are represented and we have people from different parts of the city. We also have stakeholders of the main Churches that represent the various parts of the city. Furthermore, there is a microcosm of the users of the service who come from right across the city. That strengthens the decision-making process.
Mr Lunn:
There will be a bigger number and a smaller area. At present, the ESA will represent the whole of Northern Ireland with a maximum of 12 members — seven of whom will be local councillors. Where is the scope for other interests in those other five people, who, presumably, include the chairman?
Mr Cargo:
Twelve is rather small for the range of responsibilities and the amount of money and assets with which the ESA will deal.
Mr Lunn:
You do not seem to have a problem with the fact that there is a majority of local councillors; you are a major disappointment to me. [Laughter.] I will have to go back to the bishops. [Laughter.]
Miss McIlveen:
My questions are on two areas. The first, primarily, is directed to Gordon. Being a control freak is no bad thing — it is a positive trait that I sometimes see in myself.
Mr B McCrea:
What a good job Hansard does. That will be used on countless occasions.
Miss McIlveen:
In reference to clause 13, you mention receiving Charter Mark status for a curriculum advisory and support service and for innovative models of delivery. It is right that you should be proud of that. The question is in and around best practice and the lack of a comparator — for want of a better word — for the ESA. How can best practice be delivered?
Mr Topping:
Charter Mark is a quality award that is based on customers and the service and delivery that they receive. We have tried to ensure that our service achieves maximum customer satisfaction, and we have systems and procedures that are externally assessed to demonstrate that.
It is important that single organisations develop a culture of continuous improvement. To do that, one needs to benchmark one’s service against where one started from so that, each year, one improves on pupil outcomes, customer satisfaction or any other measure. It is also important to benchmark one’s service against others. For example, the education service is trying to benchmark itself against the best in the world through the programme for international student assessment ( PISA) results. I do not see any reason why the ESA should not look at other countries and services to ensure that the service that it delivers is at least of the same quality as elsewhere. The same principles of customer orientation and continuous improvement apply whether there is a single body or five or more bodies in a region — it is important to demonstrate year-on-year improvement.
Miss McIlveen:
Are there standard performance indicators across all the boards?
Mr Topping:
There are some standard indicators in the resource allocation plans, the work that we are set by the Department and in its strategic plan that all the boards deliver. There are other indicators that each board uses to measure itself year on year, because each area is different.
Mr Sloan:
I agree with Gordon. One of our strengths is our sub-regional structure; one size does not fit all in Northern Ireland. Our sub-regional structure is made up of five boards, which means that each can see what the others do and can adopt best practice from them. There is a great deal of co-operation and cross-fertilisation. If the sub-regional structure is properly constituted by the ESA, that co-operation could be maintained; however, it will not work if there is only one board and, as someone said, if ideas are cherry-picked from England. Oscar Wilde said that Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language: the culture in England is entirely different from that here and we have entirely different needs. Something must be built in locally that allows the boards in different areas to learn from one another instead of having exactly the same thing everywhere.
Miss McIlveen:
In his submission, Gordon Topping said that, with regard to clause 13, the details were sufficiently vague as to be able to offer only limited comment. What would you like in clause 13 to strengthen it?
Mr Topping:
We were saying primarily that there will be a tension between what is delegated to schools, what is held centrally and what is held locally. We are concerned because we do not know how the delegation will be done. For example, every school needs literacy, so that will have a particular form. Will responsibility for that be delegated to schools, which can buy their own advice? Will it be part of a local dimension or will it all be centralised somewhere? How will responsibility be divided in areas where there is a special need or a minority subject? The tension is whether to delegate the money for those services to schools, in which case the ESA will have no control; hold the money centrally, in which case one can dictate exactly where the resource goes; or mix and match so that some of the resource is delegated and some of it held centrally.
That is the crucial tension between central support, local support and school discretion. That is what we meant when we referred to that clause.
Miss McIlveen:
What will be the future of the controlled sector? I am mindful of the comments made in previous submissions from the Catholic bishops. They spoke about a single employing authority and the erosion of ethos. I want you to develop the concept of ethos in the controlled sector. Also, the Southern Board referred to the ownership body. Will you comment on that, too?
Mr Sloan:
Gordon mentioned that the ESA seems to represent a move from five authorities to one. Our concern is that the parity of support for sectors is perhaps not as it ought to be. I speak from the South Eastern Board’s perspective, and, as a single board, we have been extremely careful to ensure that we never supported any particular sector more than another. All the services that we provide, including Curriculum Advisory and Support Service (CASS), special education, welfare and maintenance, are for every sector, other than perhaps the voluntary grammar and the grant-maintained integrated sectors, which are the responsibility of the Department. We have never promoted any particular schools.
The important issue of support bodies for the controlled sector must be addressed. How exactly that is done is still up for discussion. At one stage, the controlled sector was described as not having an ethos, but I do not subscribe to that view, nor, I believe, would my colleagues. In any case, no other sector is uniform; each has variations within it.
Discussion continues about how the school estate should be managed. As Gordon said, the management of an education service in Northern Ireland requires rationalisation. Some of the villages in the Southern Board area have four primary schools, where only one is needed. We had hoped that, through the establishment of a single authority, all sectors would be brought in as equal partners to devise an equal solution that satisfied everyone. Somehow, that idea has been lost, with the controlled sector in one corner and other sectors in different corners. That disturbs us slightly because we expected that sense of separation to dissipate, which would have added tremendous strength to the education system.
Mr Topping:
We never wanted to be in the current situation in which there is a plethora of sectoral support bodies. At the outset of the discussion, we supported a single integrated authority, in which all the rights and the ethos of all interests would be protected. Sometimes, such protection may have to be enshrined in legislation, as happened with the boards. However, we have ended up in a position whereby whatever one group has, another group must have too. We did not sign up to that at the beginning of the exercise.
There is no such protection included in the Education Bill, although there is potential to include it in a second Bill. Unfortunately, Pandora’s box has been opened, and it will be difficult to put the lid back on. As a result, there are various types of sectoral support for all kinds of bodies. Without clear legislation, that detracts from the ESA’s ability to manage.
Mr Cargo:
There is a danger that the Bill under discussion, and even a second Bill, will end up addressing the wrong problem. If the problem is the need to improve the educational opportunities of children, the Bill should clearly reflect the ways in which that will be achieved; the structures would follow from that central purpose.
I make no apology for saying that I am an integrationist in the best sense of the world. Education structures should be integrated; they should recognise diversity but celebrate inclusion. What I see now in the debate is an unedifying scramble by some sectors to ensure, quite properly, that they are not left out in a sectoral body carve-up of administration. That was never the intention of the boards in subsuming their wishes for the greater good — the development of a better system. If the outworking is that we spend most of our time discussing the setting up of sectoral support bodies just so as everyone feels loved, we have lost a major opportunity to enhance the opportunities for children.
Mr G Butler:
That reflects the Southern Board’s response. We feel that it is not simply a matter of replicating everything that exists in the other sectors. If the sole purpose of the Bill is to provide a unified service, a big issue is what powers it is given. David mentioned respecting diversity and, at the same time, looking at methods of delivery that run across sectors. In particular, Stanton mentioned the need to look at the number of schools and locations and to maintain sustainable schools.
The Department’s policy paper 20 did not even fully replicate what went on in other sectors. The controlled sector had major problems. The paper was really saying that we would be given the powers in principle, but that the ESA would still hold the ownership and control. To use a good old expression from north Antrim, it was neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring.
Mr Mulholland:
Adding to what my colleagues already said, the creation of those new bodies eats into any potential savings that there would be in the future.
Miss McIlveen:
I will ask one final question about a point that I know my colleague wishes to develop further. Are you concerned about the fact that, when writing about this period, historians may summarise that the boards were found wanting in their protection of the controlled sector and of the sectoral bodies that came out of that?
Mr Topping:
No, I do not think so. Obviously, I do not want to be defensive about the boards, because we have agreed to subsume our interests for the greater good. However, we have tried to say that all children are equal and need to be treated equally; that they need to have the maximum opportunities, and that we want to provide a service that is as efficient and as integrated as possible.
Therefore, we are talking about an all-inclusive organisation that recognises the differences that exist, but that, at the same time, ensures that everyone is treated fairly. There is nothing wrong with that position. In fact, that is the high moral ground position, and we have always held it. Unfortunately, it does not look as though things are moving in that direction at present.
Mr McCausland:
Stanton Sloan made a point about the subregional structure and used the phrase “if properly constituted”. How can that be constituted properly in order to do what needs to be done to recognise the differences across the country?
Mr Sloan:
That really is a matter for the ESA to determine.
Mr McCausland:
I think that it needs help. [Laughter.]
Mr Sloan:
One of the strengths of the current situation is the number of services that are provided locally. Certainly from the point of view of parents and schools — including the boards of governors, staff and pupils — there is a whole range of services that is provided locally.
As regards the phrase “if properly constituted”, there needs to be a clear determination as to what will be available at a subregional level, whatever number of subregional groups there may be. For example, when people spoke initially about finance, they spoke about a centralisation of the finance function. The South Eastern Board has now employed several people from the Department as LMS advisers. They work in our finance department, but they spend their time with schools, helping them directly with their budgets and with developing five-year plans. A clear process of thought must be applied to finding out what schools want — they must be asked what they need locally. Schools and parents, as the end users, are in the best position to tell you what they want and what should be located at that subregional level.
We certainly have views on the matter: I could give you a list of services, and I started to do so earlier when I talked about educational welfare and psychology. The whole area of special needs must be local. The human resources function — depending on the resolution of the problem of employing authority and employer function — is another area where boards of governors are supported. Those issues need to be sorted out.
Mr Cargo:
Stanton quite rightly focused on services. However, there are two key principles involved. The first is that whatever happens locally must be enshrined in the Bill. Intent cannot be relied on. Here is an opportunity to recast the system, and we need to be sure that whatever happens locally is enshrined in the legislation. It must be clear and explicit. The second is that the relationship must have a democratic accountability. It must also have a stakeholder accountability to be able to provide for schools, and it certainly has to have user accountability. Any local model needs to have those three elements built into it. It has to be integrated.
I want to mention one of the opportunities lost in this situation, which Gordon referred to at the start. We are dealing with children. One cannot divorce education from health, community capacity or the context in which children live in certain areas. We need to think seriously about including in the Bill specific clauses that provide for integrated local provision. Nelson knows, as I do from working in the inner city, that although the key determinant in moving people out of deprivation is education, there are also clear links to economic regeneration, community capacity building and health inequalities. We must write into the legislation a requirement for the education structures to collaborate in that way. We need to place a requirement on the body to define local need, otherwise an opportunity will be lost and the importance of a key dimension in education will be diluted. Education is a local service.
Mr G Butler:
One of my hopes for a local Assembly, as one brought up in the education system throughout the period of direct rule, is that a style of joined-up government should emerge. The roles of community planning and education support should both be seen as part of how young people progress in Northern Ireland. We must tie that into not only the education debate, but the debate about where education fits into the wider picture of Northern Ireland plc, and how the Assembly sees Northern Ireland and its young people progressing and growing.
Mr McCausland:
Stanton spoke about the functions that would be provided, and David spoke about the shape of the subregional structure. At an earlier stage, the question was asked about how that would operate. It is all very vague at present. Someone said it is a bit like a DPP, whereby it monitors what the police are doing. That did not go down terribly well: the reaction was that all a DPP does is tick boxes and everyone ignores what it does anyway.
How do you see that local, subregional structure having a role in influencing, shaping and making decisions? What powers would it have? Would it just be a consultative group that meets but which everyone ignores, or would it have teeth? How would it work?
Mr Cargo:
One of the themes that we have tried to get across this morning is that we believe in a regional service that is delivered locally. Education is an important requirement for young people and adults in Northern Ireland, and, undoubtedly, there needs to be a regional dimension to it so that there are coherent policies and strategies across the region that ensure accountability to the Assembly, the Minister and the citizens of Northern Ireland.
However, in its delivery, education is a local service that is tailored to meet the needs of individual communities. It is not the same in Ballinamallard as it is in Belfast or Ballycastle. Although we must ensure that we have a top-down structure that ensures coherence, we must also have in place a bottom-up process with local structures, both to capture all the views of the stakeholders and to ensure that the ESA is bound, not just to listen, but to take account, in a structured way, of area-based plans. That brings us back to area planning for provision and also for delivery of services. If you are going to deliver a service in Turf Lodge or the Shankill, the service, by its very nature, will be very different to that which would be delivered in rural Fermanagh or west Tyrone.
In addressing that local dimension, you must ensure that that there would not just be a monthly meeting to tick boxes; you must build meaningful area plans, which the ESA must take account of in legislation, and those area plans must take account of the regional strategy within which it operates.
Mr McCausland:
I will move to a different area. Michelle spoke about ethos, and the phrase “Pandora’s box” was used earlier. I am not sure how you would describe it, but once you start to deconstruct the current system, all sorts of issues come out of the woodwork. I have learned things in this process of which I was never before aware, even though I have sat on an education and library board for many years. I doubt that anyone else who sat on an education and library board had a greater knowledge than I on those matters.
The point was well made that one of the factors must be equality for all children. The difficulty is that, by the nature of the system in Northern Ireland, children are broken up into sectors. If you do not have equality across all the sectors, you do not have equality for all children: that is our difficulty.
One of the points that the Catholic bishops made very forcefully when they appeared before the Committee recently was in relation to the role of governors. Last week, we asked the Department some questions about the appointment of governors to controlled schools and to CCMS schools, and we look forward to the answers.
The boards also appoint governors to both of those sectors. The key point for the Catholic bishops was that governors who are appointed must be supportive of the ethos of the sector. How do boards ensure that the governors that they appoint are supportive of the ethos of the maintained sector? Do they also look at whether governors appointed in the controlled sector support its ethos? I do not know if boards do that in the same way. I have some sense of how that works in practice — of how names are put forward and the result is reached — but I have no sense of how it works with the Catholic maintained schools. How do you ensure that those people support the ethos?
Mr Topping:
We may do it in different ways, but I guess that each board has some kind of member input into that process. We have management committees, which deal with each of the subdivisions. In our case, those subdivisions cover nine council areas, and members from each area make decisions as to who represents the board. Other boards have committees that are constituted to do that.
Although it is probably done in different ways, in practical terms, the boards ask the Catholic sector, for example, to nominate people who they think could act as board representatives and still sign up to the Catholic ethos. Local knowledge comes into play in the controlled sector, because many of the board members will have knowledge of the areas in which they serve and represent, and they will feed in names. As a result of that, a variety of names is put forward, and we then make a decision.
Some of us have trawled — not necessarily advertised — for board members in local communities. For example, we placed flyers in libraries to say that we need good people to sit on the boards. We spelt out some of the criteria that we use, and we asked people if they would be interested in putting their names forward.
Therefore, I guess that we would probably do it in different ways. That is a general summary. I am not sure if anyone wants to add to it.
Mr Cargo:
I believe that there is a misnomer in the current system. The schools for which we have direct responsibility are called controlled schools. However, when it comes to the development of a school’s ethos and how a community perceives it, we are probably the one sector that has no control. Given the history of the past 30 years, boards have tended to leave the operation of individual controlled schools to the good sense of the local community. Obviously, there is a different scenario in the faith-based system, which, I assume, is about trying to get consistency on the core values of a particular faith throughout all schools. Therefore, we have a problem with the title of “controlled” because everyone thinks that we control boards of governors.
As regards ethos, Nelson, we are proud that we have responded to local communities’ needs. In taking that on, as Gordon says, in the development of boards of governors, we have very much left that to the good sense of board members who often know intimately the local communities that they serve. Therefore, governors have tended to emerge from that discussion.
If we move into a different situation in which we start to have sectoral bodies, a debate emerges that is the logical outcome of questions such as, “What is the controlled sector?”; “What is its ethos?”; and, “How do you ensure that everyone in that sector complies with that ethos?”. Once you enter that debate, it will neither be short nor easy. You will end up with structures that will, perhaps, add additional layers of complexity to a structure that you are trying to simplify.
Mr McCausland:
The logical conclusion, therefore, is that either everybody has a sectoral body, or nobody has it.
Mr Cargo:
That could be a conclusion.
Mr Topping:
When we were involved in the initiation of that debate with the Department, we envisaged that sectors would have their ethos and rights protected inside a regional body. However, as it stands at present, the regional body that is being created will have some difficulty, we argue, with how it manages the system and a whole pile of sectoral bodies outside it; more sectoral bodies, in fact, than we have ever seen.
Mr Sloan:
As regards appointing governors, we operate a similar system to that of the North Eastern Education and Library Board. We try to ensure that we appoint governors who support the ethos of the school. We all visit many schools. You can go to two maintained schools, and, despite their being in the same sector and having the same Catholic ethos, each school has a different overall ethos. We discuss schools’ needs with them frequently and try to balance skills to meet those needs.
Nelson, you made a comment about treating all children equally. We all subscribe to that view absolutely and totally. It is fundamental to draw a distinction between treating all children equally and treating all children the same. To treat all children equally does not mean to treat them all the same, because account must be taken of individual differences. The same applies to schools when appointing governors. In treating all schools equally, you do not necessarily treat them all the same.
Mr B McCrea:
There is always a danger, when you reach this stage in the proceedings, that anything that is worth saying has been said several times.
Mr McCausland:
That will not stop you. [Laughter.]
Mr B McCrea:
I thought that you had finished, Nelson, although if you want to come back to the discussion, be my guest. [Laughter.]
Some useful questions were asked, on which I want to press you. I apologise, therefore, if I go back over matters that I did not get a chance to discuss earlier. There are certain particularly germane matters.
Just so that you understand where I am coming from; my party is in favour of maximum devolved autonomy to schools, with appropriate oversight arrangements to ensure that no inappropriate activity occurs. We believe that the ESA, as it is currently envisaged, will become a centralised bureaucratic monster that will not allow that to happen. That is why we have significant concerns.
I have a couple of questions that I want to pick up on. You gentlemen are all in a unique position to help us, given your experience of 180 years, or whatever length of time Trevor said it was. I am not sure whether that was 180 years’ experience each.
Mr Topping:
That is 30 years more than the last time.
Mr B McCrea:
Well, it has been a long meeting.
Furthermore, a number of you — though not all of you — said that you are reaching the end of your specific interest in the process. Therefore, you could afford us your opinions. I am slightly disappointed — and I mean that gently — that you have not grabbed the bull by the horns and told us exactly what you think. There were a couple of times earlier when you said that you were not being political, but, of course, as the debate goes on, it becomes more expansive. However, this is not a political decision. Various members have merely asked for your opinion; they have asked you, as experienced educationalists, what you really think.
I will narrow it down to two or three points, which, throughout our discussions, emerged as the central issues. Mary asked a devastatingly simple question, which we fudged — do you, as a group or as individuals, have confidence in the ESA, as it currently stands in the proposals? I have a few other questions, but, given that you talked about crucial differences and so on, do you have confidence that the ESA, as currently outlined in the Bill, will deliver a better educational system than the one that we have now?
Mr Topping:
I will preface my answer by saying that we refute what has been said. We answered the questions, and we tried to be as clear as possible in our answers. We said quite explicitly what we believe in. We said that we believe in a regional education authority, and that we want it to be all-inclusive. We have said that it should have a children’s service dimension, and that it should have the powers to be able to manage the system. That is the framework within which we answered all the questions.
Basil repeated the question that was asked previously, which related to whether we have confidence in the ESA, but he added the phrase “as it currently stands”. We were asked whether we had confidence in the ESA. Of course, we have our concerns about the ESA as it currently stands in the Bill, and we expressed those concerns throughout this morning’s discussion. Therefore, as it currently stands, we would like to see changes, and we have illustrated some of the changes that we would like to see. However, we answered the question within the framework that I outlined. We believe in a regional authority that has a local dimension. We want it to be all-inclusive and to have a children’s services dimension, and it should have the ability to manage the system. We still hold to those principles.
Mr B McCrea:
Gordon, I did not mean to imply that you were not answering the question. I am merely saying that I think there was a missed opportunity, but that is my personal view. You can answer in whatever way you think is appropriate.
You identified the phrase “the crucial tension”, and the crucial tension involved certain areas, such as clause 8 and the employability issues. We would find it useful to know about that. We received a letter from the GBA, which states that a prolonged cycle of rebuttals is possible, not least because of the Department’s predilection to argue that black is white when it comes to the employment issue.
A major issue has been raised by the GBA, the Catholic bishops and others, and you referred to it as well — is it the employer or the employing authority who has control of the employment issue?
That is probably the largest of the big three nubs that are central to what is happening. I agree that the question is one of clarity. The decision to be made is whether a centralised authority is what is wanted. However, given your experience, the question was in what way would you draw up a regional body? Can that be done on the basis of maximised devolved autonomy with some sort of oversight — along the lines of the Policing Board — or must all the powers rest with a central authority, with the associated knock-on effects?
Mr Topping:
I thought that we had answered that question perfectly clearly, but obviously not. It has been a long time since I was in the classroom; therefore, my powers of explaining things might have diminished over the years.
Mr B McCrea:
I am sure that the fault was mine, Gordon. I just believe that this was the key issue that we struggled with. For the sake of clarity, and in light of all of the responses, I would have liked direction, because I feel strongly — and others have said it — that whoever controls the employment contract controls everything else.
Mr Topping:
I agree 100%. The issue is not just employment; it is what is delegated to schools. If the employer role is delegated to schools, there are consequences — I think that that is what David was saying. Responsibility for the cost of the curriculum and its support services has consequences. If things such as the psychology service and the education and welfare service are delegated, there is a consequence.
We said that, in general terms, we support delegation to schools and placing responsibility for decision-making with those best able to make decisions — local people. That was the principle on which we operated. In the length of time that we have with the Committee, it would be impossible to go into what we would delegate to schools in addition to what they have, because that has knock-on consequences for the ability of the ESA to manage the system holistically. In principle, we support local management.
Mr B McCrea:
OK. At another stage, it would be useful to find out whether there was any other guidance.
I expected, but did not hear, mention of the benefits of having comparator regions, although that might have come up in the general discussion — the ability to compare and contrast, albeit, that the boards have different environments. There is a danger that that capability will be lost in a centralised regional body. I think that there is strength in having comparators; is that the case?
Mr Topping:
In summary, we said that we recognise that issue and those problems, but they can be overcome in two ways.
One way was to use other comparators — either international or national — or, as mentioned by Stanton, by using the local dimension that is likely to be created in the ESA as a means to encourage improvement.
Mr B McCrea:
Without labouring the point, the problem is that international comparators are not, strictly speaking, useful, because they have different conditions and they also tend to deal in averages.
If one looks at the sub-regional issues that could be developed, it is difficult to pick a number that is any better than five — too many becomes too localised. I think that there is merit in the job that is currently carried out, and we should not lose that.
My final point on that issue is a challenge that is meant positively. I understand the difficulties the boards face with the Committee in front of them and the Department behind them. That is an invidious position.
Trevor Lunn asked about councillors and their involvement in the decision-making body. I am aware of difficulties with boards not making decisions about closing schools and schools running up deficits and so on because it is impossible to get a decision. When we were originally looking at setting up the ESA, I thought that part of the benefit was to take a long, hard look at that issue and try to say what the decision might be.
The issue is not about just closing schools, because there are schools that I want to argue for keeping open; I just think that there are difficulties if we are not clear about what it is that we are trying to do. What does the ESA do? What do school governors do? What do the area-based planning issues do? They are all slightly different. I am not sure that having nine councillors on a regional body will give us the outcome that we require.
I understand that we all have to work with each other, and, therefore, one has to be a little bit cautious, but there is an opportunity to sit and say: “No, there were difficulties, and how do we resolve that particular issue?”
Mr Topping:
We think that we recognise the point that you are making. However, in my experience, and others can speak for themselves, we have had no more difficulties from elected representatives than we have had from others. As I said, party politics rarely come to the fore, but community politics do, and weird alliances are created, particularly on school closures, when it is not necessarily politicians or elected representatives who take the lead, but other local community representatives.
That is all part of the business area, so to speak, in which we work: getting support, dealing with issues and trying to get consensus around a board table with 35 members.
Mr B McCrea:
I agree, and this is absolutely my last statement because I understand the position. Is it right for that discussion to take place in the ESA or in some other area-based planning context?
Mr Cargo:
Decision-making processes are a bit like appointments: you are not exclusive. Education is a community based service; therefore, it is important to reflect at all levels in the education service the totality of those who are engaged in it, and politicians have a vital role. Like Gordon, I have always found local councillors helpful in such a situation. They have good local intelligence that they can bring to the table and give an added dimension to the discussion. If they were not there, the discussion would not be as fruitful.
One need only look at the Health Service, which, for a time, had no local councillors or representatives on any of its structures. I think that, at certain times, decisions made on health were poorer for the lack of local representation. There should be local representation, but in the ESA the local dimension as represented by those who are democratically accountable should be at the heart of the organisation. That is consistent with the structures that are being put in place.
However, it is also proper that they are there because they bring an added intelligence and impetus to discussions on what is best for certain areas, because education is about sustaining communities. If we get to a stage when we are simply putting in place what is a business structure, education will be much poorer, and the opportunities for children will be much fewer.
Mr B McCrea:
The boards and you gentlemen have made a huge contribution, and have a further contribution to make. Given that this is not the end but the start of the process, I encourage you to carry on engaging and helping us on this issue, because these processes sometimes assume that we know what it is that we want to do, and, therefore, we will check it out. Actually, we are in a much more iterative process, whereby one takes on ideas and decides that perhaps we will do it this way.
I do think that you are central to it, and I implore you to try and find a way of feeding more into our debate.
Mr Topping:
We will provide whatever help in this process that the Committee wants.
Mr B McCrea:
I finished too quickly.
The Chairperson:
We have considered various issues, but there is one on which I would like your opinion. You expressed a clear view on the inspectorate, but I would like you to expand on the role of the inspector and his or her ability to carry out their functions independently. I think that it was Mr Mulholland who dealt with that part. He seemed to imply that there would be a conflict of interest between the inspectorate’s role with regard to the curriculum and the policy and its overseeing role. What is the concern there? It is something that we have considered and discussed, but not in much detail.
Mr Mulholland:
The inspectorate values its independence, and it perceives itself to be independent. Clause 37 establishes the powers of the inspectors. The inspectorate is still part of the Department of Education and is overseen by it, and it will be party to the policies that come from the Department. Therefore there will be a perceived conflict of interest when inspectors are carrying out their inspectoral role: monitoring, inspecting, reviewing, and reporting on Department of Education policy in schools. There was an opportunity in the Bill to establish the independence of the inspectorate, much as there is in England. That is an opportunity lost.
Mr McCausland:
The inspectorate is situated in the Department. However, is it separate from the Department?
Mr Mulholland:
It is an integral part of the Department of Education.
Mr Topping:
We understand that the chief inspector is part of the senior management team of the Department and its principle educational advisor.
The Chairperson:
We will come back to that.
Mr O’Dowd:
Is it not the case that a conflict of interest would arise if he or she was the inspector of the Department rather than of schools on behalf of the Department?
Mr Mulholland:
The inspector inspects the policies that come from the Department and their implementation in schools.
Mr O’Dowd:
A conflict of interest would arise if there was an inspector of the Department. For instance, if this Committee’s role is to inspect the Department of Education, and the members were from one party — which I wish was the case — [Laughter.]
Mr Topping:
We are making the point that was made across the water, and it relates to why there are independent inspectorates outside the Department. The basic thrust of Mr Mulholland’s argument is that there is an inspectorate that is party to devising a policy on an issue. That policy will be implemented in schools through the boards or the CCMS, for instance, and an inspector will inspect its implications and workings. If an inspector says that the policy is a disaster, he or she is criticising themselves, because he or she was party to devising the policy advice that went to the Minister.
Mr Cargo:
It would strengthen the system if there was a clear separation. The Belfast Education and Library Board made a further point around the clarity in respect of separation of functions, and we thought that it was an opportunity lost. The role of the inspectorate should be strengthened to make it a more accountable and independent body that will provide quality information, without fear or favour to anyone.
Mr G Butler:
I will refrain from discussion on this topic because my wife is an inspector. I declare that interest for the record.
Mr Lunn:
It sounds so obvious and simple, but has it caused a problem in the past? Can you provide an instance where an inspector’s ability to act independently was compromised by his membership of the Department.
Mr Topping:
I do not know; we cannot comment on that as we are not aware of any.
Mr Lunn:
How long has that arrangement been in place? Since the mists of time?
Mr Topping:
Yes.
Mr Lunn:
And it has not caused a problem:
Mr Topping:
No.
The Chairperson:
Gordon, Stanton, Barry, David, and Gregory, thank you all very much for your contributions to the discussion. A paper has been prepared by the Department in response to the issues that have been raised, which the Committee will make available to you. You are all welcome to stay — if you wish.
Members, I am conscious that time is marching on.
Mr McCausland:
Time is moving on, and we have the response from the Department. We will not be able to go into that in any great depth. Would it be in order, once the response goes to the boards, for us to ask each of the five boards to come back to us with their view of the response, as they had a list of specific points?
The Chairperson:
Yes. That is what we have been trying to encourage up until now.