Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak as a Committee member on this subject. I welcome the consultation and the statement by the Minister.

This is one of the current educational objectives of both the Minister and the Department. It is one of the milestones in the educational calendar, along with capital investment in schools and the abolition of the school performance tables.

The Irish-medium promotional body has already been mentioned. Irish is a growing language, and it should be cherished as part of the national heritage of the people of Ireland. The need for Irish-medium education has been proven, and it is a growing need. That should be welcomed, rather than considered to be an unnecessary expense.

There are three reviews that are currently running together. The post-primary review is probably the most important review for a long time. There is also the review of the curriculum and the local management of schools consultation on a common funding formula for grant- aided schools. I welcome the consultation, and in particular the Minister's assurances that no decisions have yet been made. That is important for all those in schools and anyone who might want to have input into the consultation. I appeal to all the partners in the education system to submit their views by 30 June, or, if that is changed, whatever date is decided.

The need to simplify the budget allocation must not take precedence over the need to allocate funding fairly to where it is most needed, even if complex calculations are required in order to ensure that all the relevant factors are considered. These calculations are part of the Department's work, and it has expertise in that area. It is important to decide whether we feel that the principles of justice, equality and support for the disadvantaged are appropriately dealt with and acted on.

I draw attention to the issue of the maintenance of school buildings. I have visited schools where windows do not close properly and where there is a lack of insulation. Those schools have higher heating bills than schools that have been recently updated. That particularly affects schools in rural areas and small schools, where there are already difficulties and costs to deal with as a result of the drop in the number of teachers. There is also a health and safety issue when schools become old and dilapidated. In some cases, windows are nailed shut.

The sum allocated to schools for maintenance must take into consideration the age of the premises and the time since the school's last refurbishment. Small schools, especially small primary schools, need to be protected, as they are an essential part of the life of local communities, especially rural communities. Any new funding formula must ensure investment in high-quality, locally accessible primary education and full-time early-years education which have an effect on the future achievement of pupils.

The Committee for Education has said that schools with similar characteristics but in different areas or sectors receive varying budgets. That is not acceptable, satisfactory or equitable. The Committee welcomes the key objectives of ensuring that schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of the area or sector in which they are situated. Therefore, we ask everyone in the education sector - individuals, schools and others - to take part in the consultation and make their views known. That is more than important at this time.

One difficulty is that there is quite a short time for consultation at what is a very busy time for those in the educational field who want to make their input. We will have to see how that goes along. It is vital that everybody make their views known. Go raibh maith agat.

I, like many others, have many concerns about the current system, and I am also very aware that a review is necessary.

Any Member who is also a member of a school board of governors will know the problems that the current formula has produced for teacher provision, teachers' salaries, pupil numbers, implementation of the current curriculum, and so on.

The Minister's key objective in introducing a common local management of schools (LMS) formula - which was to ensure that schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of the areas or sectors in which they are located - has to be welcomed. We must work to achieve this objective which, if successfully implemented, will improve the situation in schools for teachers and all pupils.

It is vital, however, that consultation on this process is thorough and relevant. The consultation document should prove very useful. My party will be looking at this document and at the proposals very seriously, on the basic premise that a common funding formula must achieve its objective to benefit all schools and all pupils.

I will outline a few concerns that I have. I am aware that the main factor in funding procedures is the age- weighted pupil unit (AWPU). That should still be the main determining factor, as pupil enrolment numbers determine the number of teachers, support staff, type of equipment, and so on. The present formula for calculating the AWPU is complicated. I will be looking closely at the more simplified proposals contained in the document, and I broadly welcome the skewing of resources towards primary schools. However, the AWPU must be reviewed continually to allow for evolving situations in pupil numbers, classroom conditions, et cetera, especially when the proposals in the Burns review are implemented.

The consultation document states that the funding of individual schools should be in accordance with the relevant need, and I am concerned about what that means. It is down as the first criterion for ensuring needs are met with clear responsibility to all types of pupils. That need must be obvious, and it must be relative to the educational needs in each school. That term will need to be made clear to boards of governors, and they will need proper training with regard to central expenditure. It is clear from the current LMS formula that there is potential for widespread inefficiency with moneys given to them. Guidance must be provided to maintain the efficient and economic provision of services.

Best value initiatives - as mentioned in the document as a mechanism for best practice - may not be as familiar to individual governors as they are to the Department of Education. They must clearly understand their responsibilities and the procedures so that effective implementation can occur.

I must also express my concerns about depending on free school meals or targeting social need (TSN) figures as the basis for funding figures, as they do not always present the correct picture across the schools. I welcome the increase in the TSN funding. However, a closer look needs to be taken at schools which may not be obvious contenders for free school meals or TSN applications but which have low achievers.

I also welcome the introduction of the special education needs factor. Again, I need to be confident that this will be implemented properly, as I have already expressed concerns about the current statementing process, never mind the situation with those children who are difficult to deal with but who are not statemented.

It is encouraging that the document comments on the fact that there are winners and losers under this new formula. I hope that the transitional protection offered will avoid undue and unacceptable turbulence in the funding levels. We must also ensure that the transitional arrangements are effective in helping schools to adjust to the new resource allocation. It would be useful to be told how the "cushioning" method that is mentioned will be implemented. Who will assist that? Will it be the Department or the education and library boards? It must be made known what will happen after the three-year period of adjustment.

I agree that it is vital that we assist and support our primary schools, but we must not do so at the expense of either nursery or post-primary schools. If we are to prepare all our children for future life in a meaningful way, we cannot replace one inequitable system with another. The priority, as the Minister states, must be in the school. Factors such as small school support, the extension of the teacher salary protection factor, funding for the new sports factor and the continued inclusion of other factors mentioned this morning - for example, special unit funding, travellers, English as an additional language, Irish-medium schools and, I hope, integrated education schools, and children of service personnel - must be welcomed. It is essential that the inclusion of all children, whatever their background, be encouraged.

The Alliance Party fully supports a common formula to replace the seven that are currently used to allocate resources to schools. We welcome the consultation document and the helpful response document, in which some of the questions and concerns are highlighted for easy response. I hope that will in some way go towards addressing the concerns that we all have about the timetable for this consultation process. We hope that the consultation, whatever the timetable, is a success. It must be remembered, however - as we in the Assembly know only too well, and sometimes to our cost - that devolving decision making to the local level does not always result in an efficient and effective response, either in financial or people-power terms. I can only hope that the current tensions and problems that are present in schools because of funding difficulties will be eased by these proposals.

To achieve a successful outcome to this process we must ensure that all pupils will have improved facilities and conditions, that teachers will feel better valued and protected and that education overall will be the winner. I hope that everyone interested in those goals will use this process. I support the motion.

First, I declare an interest as a member of the Belfast Education and Library Board. As a city councillor I represent the council on that board. I am also on the board of governors of two primary schools in north Belfast.

I have previously been in contact with the Minister and have discussed the issue of local management of schools and the funding element in particular. Having read the document, there seems to be quite a lot of good things in it. On reading it a second time, I have to say that I have concerns, particularly about the Belfast area and the schools that have to exist there. I know from local Protestant primary schools, especially those in north Belfast - and I am sure that it is the same across Belfast - that we have a shrinking population. There are a number of reasons for that, quite a few of which are down to successive Governments and to planners who badly planned the whole notion of Belfast and its dormitory towns. As a result, we have a shrinking population.

One of my difficulties in this is that we have not looked at teachers' wages, which are paid out under the local management of schools. While that continues, those sorts of schools will suffer. The reason is that they have teachers who have served more than seven years and who have to be paid on the top line - there is nothing we can do about that. If a school with 104 pupils or less tries to employ all of those teachers, year on year the board of governors will be faced with having to make people redundant. It is not a very nice choice to have to make, particularly if there is no voluntary redundancy. One has to decide who is going to leave the school. Those are always going to be the difficulties until we decide that wages should be taken out and paid centrally.

Some of the issues that stem from that are long-term sick and maternity leave, particularly if subs are brought in. A top-line sub costs £132·86 a day. Usually, all of that must come out of the budget unless the relevant education board pays for that centrally, in which case it pays £100 a day leaving the added cost of £32·86 in statutory sick pay. Those are issues we need to get to grips with.

In my opinion, the Minister has developed many other relevant matters. The changes he has made to the curriculum reserve fund will probably benefit some of the schools that I represent; recognising that there must be redundancies, he has tweaked to cover for that. I can verify that, until now, a number of schools in Belfast that have had to do that have not benefited in any way from the curriculum reserve fund and have been left out for several reasons.

We continue to view school meals as indicative of social need, as indeed they are. However, we also need to remember that a number of these schools are based in socially deprived areas and that education has to be a fundamental right for everybody. That must be considered in the review of post-primary education.

At the beginning of this debate, the Minister expressed the view that investment in early years has to be welcomed. Most of us recognise that that is where investment is needed, so that by the time pupils get to post-primary education they should have the ability to achieve in those particular schools.

Concerning the budget, I want to discuss the whole system of schools having to pay out for maintenance following vandalism. In Belfast both Protestant and Catholic schools are often vandalised. I am not differentiating here, but quite a lot of schools in peace line areas are damaged due to sectarianism. When schools re-open after a break, whether after Easter, when the Easter Rising is commemorated, or when returning in September after the Twelfth of July, the damage caused by vandalism must be paid for out of the budget, and no one wants to take up that issue.

I recall having to fight hard for a school that had been subject to a sectarian attack. Intercom systems that had been put in place because of the tragic massacre in Dunblane in Scotland were destroyed. Still and all, the education board would not pay out. Rather, it told the school to pay it out of its own budget. Consider how many books that money could have bought for that school.

I am also concerned about LMS demands that schools have composite P6 and P7 classes. In the deprived areas where these schools are situated, that policy does not give pupils the opportunity for a proper education and proper preparation for secondary school.

As regards the document's proposal for sport, I am concerned that the money might be put into equipment rather than expertise. If we seriously want to do something about sport, we should ensure that we have PE teachers in primary schools and that we invest in teachers rather than in equipment. Equipment will not make a difference to the pupils; we need expertise if we really want to produce quality pupils in sport.

I ask the Minister to consider the whole of Belfast and how this would have an impact on it. Unless we remove the budget for teachers' salaries, then schools in Belfast are going to suffer. Someone spoke earlier about the different sectors. I believe that parents should be allowed to choose which sector they send their child to.

One case that I want to make today is for the integrated schools. I believe that over the last 20 years, parents have come together to make a choice. We are all told about the choice that we have in education. I believe that choice, not only in education but in other walks of life such as employment, is a weasel concept.

Sometimes we are told that we can have one or the other rather than having a choice of more than one. It must be recognised that some parents in our sectarian society have decided that they would like their children to be educated together, and Members should seriously examine how that can be facilitated. Parents who would like their children to be taught in an integrated school should not be prevented from doing so and should not be discriminated against.

Unless the wage bill is removed from LMS, not even a dent will be made in the problem. I welcome the vast majority of the Minister's document, but the fundamental flaw is the wage bill.

I commend the Minister for the reception he received at the recent teachers' union conferences. I am delighted that he did not have to run the same gauntlet as his counterpart in the Republic, the Minister of Education and Science, who has not received quite the same welcome when attending similar conferences. However, here comes the sting. Although I welcome the consultation document it falls far short of what the education system needs. It tinkers at the edges, whereas what is needed is an entire overview of the education system.

Given the proliferation of expensive bodies and administrative systems in the Department of Education, would it not have been better to have asked for consultation on how Members would like to see the education system administered? The management of schools and the formula could then have been examined in the light of that consultation. We are looking at only one aspect of the issue. Sometimes it appears as if we are starting at the wrong end, and we may not get it right.

Gerry McHugh mentioned the Burns review on post- primary education. If recommendations emerge from the review, this could all be a temporary expedient, because Members may be back here shortly re-examining this issue, especially since it addresses the primary and post-primary sectors. I am concerned that Members are seeking responses now when recommendations that will impact on the Minister's decision will shortly be available.

Given the number of bodies in the Department of Education, I was surprised that it used a private consultancy firm, Coopers & Lybrand, to carry out this exercise. Is the education system so bitty that the Department could not have looked at the issue in a co-ordinated way rather than handing over the job to someone else? It does not speak well for devolution if those jobs have to be given to private consultancies.

I am also concerned about the evidence for increasing the formula for TSN. I welcome TSN, but how was the percentage of 5·5% arrived at? Members will need evidence to convince them that that increase was all that was required. I take issue with Oliver Gibson, who argued that TSN should not be based on issues such as whether children are entitled to free school meals. Social policy research states that where there is deprivation and many children require free school meals, there are parents on benefits or very low incomes. However, the parents may not be on low incomes because that factor has been taken out of the system. But from what we know about deprivation, the children of parents who are on benefits have particular needs, and special resources should be targeted at those children in schools.

As Billy Hutchinson said, the central part of this dilemma is teachers' salaries. Some 80% of funding goes towards paying the wage bill, which creates enormous insecurity in schools every year as to whether they will have to make teachers redundant.

Surely it would be more sensible to adopt a central funding system, which excludes salaries, to avoid the apparent increasing lack of morale. We do not want to reach a situation similar to that in the Republic of Ireland where teachers are on strike. That is having a huge impact on young people's education. Northern Ireland may face that situation unless we seriously address the issue of giving teachers permanency and security. Continuity is the most important factor when teachers are educating our children. They will know the children better if they have been in the school for some time.

I am also very concerned about private finance initiatives. The consultation document does not ask for responses on this, and the public/private partnerships may lead to problems in the future. If the projected enrolments in new-build schools are not meeting the targets, will money have to be allocated to cover the cost of the rebuild and redundancies? I am still concerned that opportunities are missed when documents such as this, particularly those relating to the long-term funding and management of schools, go out for consultation without the views of teachers and others having been sought.

Counting, particularly the age-weighted pupil units, is a very difficult issue. On the one hand, we do not want to prejudice the system against schools that are trying to expand. In the past, Mr Billy Hutchinson, Mrs Bell, myself and others have raised the matter of new schools, especially those in the integrated sector. We do not want to prejudice opportunities for them, but we would be doing that if we were to detract from funding for smaller schools. On the other hand, we do not want to put larger schools at a disadvantage.

I received a letter from the principals of five primary schools who argue that the recent round of funding disadvantaged them, and I am sure that the Minister received the same correspondence. Extra funding was given to smaller schools, and the creation of a maximum for larger primary schools meant that they received less funding per pupil. It is not impossible for us to get around that problem. There should never be large numbers of losers in this system.

Skewing resources to the primary and early years sector is an important target. However, given the recent demographic trends that point to the need to sustain post-primary schools, how will the Minister meet both sectors if we are not to have losers? In other words, the numbers are going to fall in early years in primary schools, but we have always agreed that we should target that and set an aim for our education system to improve, particularly where there is disadvantage, the education of very young children. In doing that, I hope that secondary schools are not put at a disadvantage.

We need more research on equity and effectiveness. Clear equity issues exist with regard to provision for post-16 and vocational students and allocations to sixth form grammar school students. Equity between the school systems is also an issue - the integrated sector versus the controlled, maintained and voluntary sectors. Not all integrated schools are permitted to establish sixth forms, and not all existing sixth form provision is cost-effective. The entry and exit rules must be examined. I hope that those rules will be examined in detail at the end of the consultation process. If the research is falling down anywhere it is that we are lacking in accurate information.

Finally, I agree with Mr Billy Hutchinson's point about pupils who have special social needs - disruptive children. I am sure that other Members have received many letters from parents whose children have been expelled or suspended from school.

They have attempted to get them into other schools, which are reluctant to take those children unless they receive extra resources. The frequently disruptive child has an impact on the receiving school, and extra resources may be needed.

We must ensure additional resources per pupil. If we do not examine the formulae, many of those children may go into what were, in the past, considered to be schools that no one wanted to touch. The schools that accept those children should be given extra resources. In that way, we can continue to give the children some incentives, rather than having them in a system in which their behaviour is reciprocated by their peers. If those children mix with other children who are settled, the receiving schools and their teachers should have their needs addressed accordingly.

That said, this is an important document in relation to the current consultations. I hope that the Minister has allowed considerable flexibility. I hope that he will respond to some of those issues, because my major concern is that we are putting the cart before the horse.

I am not sure why this debate has been called in this form. I did not hear the Minister's explanation this morning, because the debate started earlier than anticipated. The Assembly should note that it is most unusual for a Minister to announce a consultation document in that way. Given the Minister's background and the way in which he has abused his portfolio for party political ends, I can only assume that there are one or two explanations for that.

We all - especially those of us who have been directly involved in the Committee for Education - have received considerable representation, from some sectors in particular, concerning the funding of schools. There is a belief that small schools and primary schools have been disadvantaged. I suppose it is hoped that the general impression given by the consultation will be that all those problems will be magically sorted out. However, on reading the small print, and given that it is unlikely that sufficient resources will be made available to bring us up to the high aggregated schools budget (ASB) scenario, there will be losers. That, of course, is in the fine print and for later.

Perhaps another reason for bringing this forward at this stage is that when the Department's initial document was produced, there were some elements from whom the Minister would have been very unhappy to have had criticism, especially those more sympathetic towards the maintained sector. Those people were jumping up and down before the Committee for Education, because there was a suggestion that there would be some loss to the maintained sector as a result of the proposed changes.

I note - and perhaps this is the Minister's reason for bringing the motion forward in this form - that without any explanation, using exactly the same arguments and without even having the ingenuity to change the words around, the Minister has changed the formula. In doing so, he was able to satisfy both the strident complaints of the SDLP and the more restrained voice - because they could not do anything about it - of his own party about the results of the initial document.

The Minister is using his position to manipulate his portfolio to please a particular constituency and calm fears that may have arisen before an election campaign.

He has blatantly directed half of this year's capital funding towards the Sinn Féin target constituencies of West Tyrone, Mid Ulster and Foyle and totally ignored the criteria set down, even by the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS). When a Minister abuses his position like that, I can be forgiven for my interpretation of the exercise.

Before people jump up and down in support of the matter, one should note the conclusions reached at the start of the consultation document. It states that some schools will lose more than 5% - some nearly 10% - of their budget. Those schools are likely to be from the Belfast Education and Library Board area and in the controlled sector. I will spell it out for some Members. For a secondary school of around 1,000 pupils, the loss in its budget could be in the region of £150,000 to £170,000 a year. Even if a third of that can be absorbed by cutting back on books, heating and lighting, et cetera, that is the equivalent of losing four teachers, which would put average class sizes up by two pupils per class. That is the bad news contained in the document. It admits that a large part of the budget loss is directed at the controlled sector. Therefore we can see why totally unjustified changes have been made to the original document presented to the Committee for Education.

It would be unrealistic for anyone to expect that if you are going to cut the cake up in a different way, some sectors will not lose out. Some good arguments have been advanced by the primary school sector. The whole thrust of the current education debate has been to devote resources early on in the primary school year to ensure that problems that arise later are nipped in the bud. That requires making more resources available, especially at the lower primary level - hence some of the changes in the age-weighted pupil unit (AWPU) and some other suggested changes. That will be a long-term exercise, but if it eradicates some of the difficulties that lead to extra expenditure in the post-primary sector, that will be a worthwhile investment.

I wish to discuss other aspects of the document. The main difference between the original document presented to the Committee for Education and the consultation document is on the aspect of targeting social need (TSN) and particularly the emphasis placed on free school meals. That is why there is a skewing of resources away from the controlled sector and towards the maintained sector.

That was the sop that the Minister gave to those who nearly blew a gasket when it was first suggested and who made it clear that they would not support the measure if that outcome was retained in the exercise.

Targeting social need will now be divided into two sections - the social deprivation section and the special educational needs section. An arbitrary amount of additional money was to be poured in, increasing the top slice from 5% to 5·5%, without any rationale. Initially, the available sum - £44 million - was to have been divided equally between the social deprivation factor, which was to be based entirely on free school meals, and the special educational needs factor. I would have thought that special educational need would be based on some educational factor. It was suggested that it should be based on the Key Stage 2 tests. Thirty-five per cent of the money would be allocated on that basis, and the allocation of another 15% would be based on free school meals.

The argument in the consultation document is - word-for-word - the same as that in the original document, which was sent to the Committee for Education: not even a comma has been changed. Yet the percentages in the formula have magically changed, giving approximately £5 million extra to people on free school meals.

The argument is that free school meals are a good indicator of educational need. However, according to the Department's own statistics, that is not the case. I do not care what anyone in the Assembly has said about the correlation between free school meals and educational disadvantage. The Department has produced statistics on absence rates and on achievement at GCSE level. According to those statistics, 60% of results fall outside a range of 5% above or below the suggested trend line. There is no correlation. The scatter diagram shows that the correlation that people talk about so glibly does not exist. Somehow, the Minister, without changing his argument, has changed the formula in the consultation document. The result is that one section of the school population, concentrated in Belfast, is going to find itself disadvantaged by up to 10% of the school budget.

As someone who lives and works in a working-class area, does the Member agree that if we were to take away the definition based on free school meals, things would be even worse for deprived schools in Belfast?

No, I do not. I will give you my reasons. If you look -

The Member should address his remarks through the Chair.

If the Member looked at educational achievement in those schools, he would see that if money were to be allocated on the basis of achievement, funds would still be skewed towards many of the schools in working-class areas. The best measure of what a school needs to deliver the curriculum and achieve a certain output is the educational achievement of the youngsters. As Mrs Bell said, low educational achievement is not confined to people from low-income families.

When you allocate most of the targeting social need money on the basis of free school meals, you disadvantage those youngsters. More importantly, the Minister has changed the figure arbitrarily, because that gets around a particular difficulty he was having with some of the SDLP Members - a difficulty that he would also have had with his own constituents eventually. That is where the unfairness lies.

When the Minister talks about the principles that he is adhering to, he says that the formula should be transparent and as comprehensive as possible. He has got off to a very poor start. On one hand his officials present the Committee with a certain formula, and then without any explanation, other than it gives a different outcome as to which schools win and which schools lose, he changes that formula totally. That is hardly transparency or fairness. Perhaps that is what we have come to expect from the current Minister of Education.

The Minister stated in the list of principles that the formula should support schools in delivering the curriculum. It should also underpin and reinforce wider educational policy and objectives. If the Minister is abiding by those principles then why is the money that is being top-sliced and the money that is available for special educational needs not being targeted at educational measures as opposed to social measures? That is an important question.

Billy Hutchinson and Monica McWilliams mentioned something that worries me also. There is a certain amount of sympathy for removing the wage bill from school budgets and determining it centrally. I thought that the whole idea of local management of schools, of which this is part, was designed to allow them to make their own decisions about how they wish to deliver the service to youngsters. It may well be that some schools will decide that that can be best achieved by promoting teachers and retaining experienced teachers. It may well be that other schools are happy to allow experienced teachers to leave and have lower paid, less experienced teachers just to keep pupil/teacher ratios down.

Once wages become centrally funded, that aspect of the local decision-making process will be removed -[Interruption]

I ask Members not to engage in idle conversation.

A point that teachers make to their union representatives is that it would be good if it worked like that and that local schools could decide to promote teachers or recruit new teachers - obviously at a lower pay level, at spine point six.

The problem is that teachers might have been at the same schools for a long time. Therefore those schools would not have any choice and would have to pay wages at spine point nine. Consequently, they would have to make new teachers redundant or amalgamate classes, and it often happens that two classes of 23 pupils end up in a single class of more than 35 pupils. Those are the choices that schools are facing. It is argued that it is unfair for teachers and local school management to face such choices and that it would be much better if we looked at the matter strategically and sensibly.

That would be a fair point if there were an unlimited amount of money in the central fund. Where funds are limited - which will happen - that flexibility will not be exercised, and the Department will ultimately determine the number of teachers at each level and the total number of teachers in each school. That is where the flexibility will be taken away.

The issue of how teacher salaries are dealt with needs to be very carefully addressed. It is not as simple as taking money from the Budget and giving it to the Department. If you do that, you will lose flexibility.

Members must look closely at the conclusions reached in this document. We must look closely at the changes that have occurred in the document since the original version was presented. The Minister, if he wants to be transparent, must explain why he has produced a different formula when using the same arguments. He must show whether those changes have been designed to ensure that the outcome favours one particular sector of education that, of course, he is prone to lobbying for.

I am sure that the Minister, by this stage, feels like the man who asked for directions and received the answer, "If I were you, I would not start from here". Many conflicting statements have been made.

Minister, has this document been produced in Irish and Ulster-Scots as well as in English?

Like Billy Hutchinson, who has now left, I wish to declare an interest. I too am a member of two boards of governors, and, therefore, I come to this with some background in education.

I preface my comments on this long-overdue but nonetheless welcome consultation document by reminding the Minister of his Department's key objective as stated on page five. If that principle is firmly adhered to and all schools, regardless of the sector or area in which they are located, receive similar levels of funding, such an equitable and transparent system will be welcomed by all in the House. In that vein, the matter of actual teacher costs rather than average teacher costs must be resolved. That could make a fundamental difference to small schools, rural schools and schools in TSN areas.

Although the teachers' salary protection mechanism has been in place and has lessened the financial difficulties experienced by schools, the Minister must revisit and refocus on that area. Teaching costs have also been referred to; they often reflect the length of service of staff. Therefore boards of governors, in an effort to balance the books, may on occasion be tempted, for financial reasons, to seek less experienced and, therefore, less expensive staff. That can often happen at a TSN school that most needs the expertise of an experienced teacher but finds that the financial implications unfortunately outweigh the educational necessities.

The common funding formula would also ensure that these schools could skew more of their budgets internally towards the provision of books and materials. It is frightening to look at the few pounds that are spent on books and materials. The figure of 80% for teachers' salary costs has been referred to; I suggest that 90% is, perhaps, a more accurate figure.

The efficient delivery of the curriculum via the most proficient teachers available should outweigh any consideration of the sanctity of the current LMS model. I refer the Minister and his officials to page 75 of the consultation document. In an attempt to justify the LMS model, the Department is frightened that it might be seriously weakened if the actual teacher costs were taken back into the Department. Sammy Wilson referred to teacher and principal flexibility. I welcomed LMS when I was a principal; I looked forward to creating a nest egg from which my school could benefit and to producing all those things that the education and library board could not give me. Unfortunately, that was not how the system worked. Most teachers and principals now find that there is little real flexibility in the system.

The proposed introduction of the most recent enrolment figures will be helpful for schools in their pursuit of local management of resources. It will diminish the prospect of a future clawback scenario, which is currently a consideration in many schools that have seriously fluctuating populations. We have seen that par excellence in Belfast during the summer months, with school populations disappearing almost overnight.

The premises factor presented the Minister with the opportunity to be as radical as possible. It was a chance to integrate the voluntary grammar schools and the grant-maintained integrated schools under the umbrella of the education and library boards. Surely that would have led to a reduction in the duplication of services, a simpler formula and the opportunity to use the undoubted expertise that resides in the education and library boards.

I welcome the small percentage increase in TSN, which will enable schools to tackle social deprivation and special educational needs - the core problems long associated with low achievement. Despite reference to local and international research - and the uptake of free school meals has been referred to in the Chamber as a very good indicator of social need - I am still not totally convinced. However, the task is about tackling educational underachievement, wherever it is found, and I am pleased that extra resources will be made available to tackle the problem.

I note the working party's concern that there might be some local difficulties as Key Stage 2 results, which are essentially school-based, could also be used as performance indicators. However, if the Department puts proper safeguards into place, Key Stage 2 results will prove to be a step in the right direction, especially if they can be linked with a robust, baseline assessment at year 1.

I remind the Minister of my previous request for a review of the current early-years arrangements so that we can be totally sure that we are building our primary and post-primary sectors on an educationally sound foundation. Other Members have expressed the same concern in their comments today.

As regards small school support, being the former principal of a two-teacher school west of the Bann, I fully appreciate the benefits that small rural schools can accrue, now that their problems have been identified. It has taken many years, but I am glad that the document has at least identified the problems faced by principals who teach in that scenario. I fully support the mechanism that would release those principals from the classroom situation for at least one day per week, so that they could attend to their increasing administrative and management duties.

I am not fully convinced about the Department's reference to teachers' salary costs and the role that boards of governors may have had in the past as having led to financial difficulties for some schools today. I am sure it is not beyond the ingenuity of the Department to introduce stricter guidelines to curb the enthusiasm of some boards of governors - the situation will slowly resolve itself via teacher retirements and movements to other posts and other schools. Again, I refer to the actual, as opposed to the average, teacher costs. While the teacher salary protection factor is welcome, it is only a safety net and should be used only in the interim.

I welcome the new sports factor, and I congratulate the authors of the consultation document for including it. It is, at least, a realisation that there has not been equality of provision and of opportunity in sport across our educational sectors. The sports factor is to be welcomed, as it will ensure that the equal and efficient delivery of that part of the school curriculum is a fact and not just a fiction. It is also welcome on general public health grounds, as it will enable schools to properly introduce all pupils to the joys and benefits of a wide variety of physical activities and team sports - surely something that will help build habits of personal endeavour and community co-operation.

I welcome the emergence of the document, and I encourage all who have an interest in our children, and in the future welfare of our society, to look at it in detail, to study its contents, to reflect upon its many implications and to respond with positive suggestions.

However, the proof of its effectiveness will be evident when schools in TSN areas feel that they are operating on a level playing field and schools in non-TSN areas are confident that they have not suffered any diminution in their resources as a result. That is an objective we should all be working towards. I commend the document.

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