Mr Tennyson said: “The board of the EA considered, but refused to back a plan to save £110M during the current year. A revised plan to make savings of £43M was also rejected.
“Either of these savings plans would have had a detrimental effect on the education of children and could have left the EA unable to adequately fulfill its statutory duties. This is totally unacceptable,” the Alliance MLA claimed.
“Education services in Northern Ireland have been starved of adequate funding for many years. We are already in a situation where spending on pupils in Northern Ireland is lower than any other part of the UK. This situation is likely to worsen as a result of the current financial crisis.
“It’s time political courage was shown to ensure the best interests of our children is priority. We need an Executive formed now, so the crisis in education can be fixed.”
A spokesperson for the EA said it is ‘very concerned about the growing, unprecedented pressures facing education’.
Chief Executive of the EA, Sara Long, expects 2023-24 to be ‘significantly more challenging’ and ‘will have a potentially detrimental and profound impact, for example, on the day to day running of schools, Special Educational Needs support, transport and catering, and ultimately on the educational experience and outcomes of our children and young people’.
She said being ‘mindful’ to stay within budget, they are considering, with the Department of Education and the EA Board at where spending could be reduced.
“We will continue to do everything we can to protect children and young people’s learning as far as possible in these extremely challenging financial circumstances. However, we would again wish to reiterate our concern that any proposals to reduce expenditure on a significant scale would have very grave and unacceptable consequences for the educational outcomes of our children and young people,” she said.
Chair of the EA Board, Barry Mulholland, said: “There has been a chronic under investment in education over the last ten years. Therefore, it is critical that the core education baseline costs are adequately funded to provide a stable and sustainable basis to deliver for our schools and children and young people, removing the reliance on in-year monitoring rounds to prop up the system.
“We also need to see continued investment in the ambitious programme to transform Special Educational Needs services, developing and growing early intervention support, to ensure that all of our children can lead happy, fulfilled lives, and enjoy an inclusive education within a supportive, nurturing environment.
“And with a rapidly deteriorating schools estate, we need to ensure there is adequate investment to improve the fabric of our school buildings so that our children and young people can be educated in an environment that is conducive to effective teaching and learning,” he said.
For background the Education Authority said:
• Following the 2022/23 budget settlement announced by the Secretary of State in November 2022, the Education Authority (EA) were directed to identify a range of proposals, in response to the £110m funding gap which was being forecast at that time and to deliver a balanced budget before the end of March 2023.
• The EA carefully considered a number of proposals to make savings, including reductions in services. However, it was assessed that the majority of the options available to save such a large amount in less than three months of the remaining current financial year would lead to highly unacceptable and detrimental risks to our children and young people and therefore could not be recommended for implementation.
• Therefore, a number of proposals were presented and approved at a Board meeting on Tuesday 17 January and were submitted to the Department of Education for further consideration. As a result, whilst we continue to work with Department of Education in relation to the pressures facing the system, it is highly unlikely a balanced budget can be delivered by the EA in 2022/23.
• The financial position is anticipated to be significantly more challenging in 2023-24 as outlined above.
KEY FACTS outlined by the Education Authority
• There has been chronic under investment in education – over the last ten years.
• The current unprecedented funding challenges follow ten years of under investment in education and ever-increasing demand (i.e. increasing pupil numbers, proportionately the largest school population, and the lowest education spend per pupil in the UK).
• Over the past 10 years the Education sector has seen enrolment numbers increase significantly (in schools by 7.5% and in SEN pupils with a statement by 60%).
• SEN pupils with a statement have increased by 59.7% from 13,898 in 2010-11 to 22,198 in 2021-22.
• Had the education budget simply risen by the rate of inflation from 2010-11, the budget in 2022-23 would be £150m greater than it currently is. In addition to this, EA has delivered cost savings of almost £129m since 2015.
• Consequently, per pupil funding has fallen by about 7% in real terms, when spend per pupil in Northern Ireland was already estimated to be hundreds of pounds lower than in England, Scotland and Wales.
• The Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis showed that since 2009-10, school spending per pupil was consistently highest in Scotland and generally lowest in Northern Ireland (the researchers were only able to track a broadly consistent measure of spending per pupil back to 2011-12). In 2021-22, spending per pupil is estimated to be £7,600 per pupil in Scotland (including COVID-related spending) and £6,400 in Northern Ireland (excluding COVID-related funding). Spending per pupil in England is expected to be £6,700 with the equivalent figure being £6,600 in Wales (both excluding COVID-related funding). When extrapolated out, funding in Northern Ireland is approximately £108m lower (based on spending per pupil) than in England.
• The deteriorating financial position has had a detrimental impact on schools, with approximately half of all schools reporting a cumulative financial deficit.
• Whilst EA has taken measures to constrain expenditure and delivered cost savings, it has nevertheless required significant additional in-year allocations from monitoring rounds from the Executive (£180m in 2021-22) to break even and manage financial risk over the past 3 years.
• The funding received by EA is used almost exclusively to provide funding to schools and, via the Block Grant, to deliver services that support schools, children and young people.
• The majority of EA services to schools are contractual/statutory in nature.
• Almost 50% of the Block Grant covers the costs of Special Education Needs, including SEN Transport. EA has a statutory duty to make provision for children with SEN. This is the single largest cost funded from the EA Block Grant and demand for services is growing significantly year on year.
• The other key services delivered via the Block Grant funding include: transport, school meals, c2K service, PPP/PFI schemes and pupil support, as well as meeting teacher substitution costs
