Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): I welcome to the meeting from the Department of Education Dr Mark Browne, the accounting officer and permanent secretary, and Ms Alison Chambers, the director of promoting collaboration and tackling disadvantage. I also welcome from the Department of Education Dr Suzanne Kingon, head of school improvement, and Mrs Linda Drysdale, head of early years, who are joining the meeting remotely. In attendance, we also have Mr Rodney Allen, the chief operating officer at the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO), and, joining us remotely from the Department of Finance, we have Mr Stuart Stevenson, the Treasury Officer of Accounts (TOA). Papers are in Committee members' packs.

Dr Browne, would you like to make an opening statement on behalf of your colleagues? I will then open up the meeting to questions from members.

Dr Mark Browne (Department of Education): Thank you very much, Chair, and good afternoon, members. Thank you for the opportunity to update you today on this important report. We welcome the report and its findings and recommendations. I assure the Committee that nothing is more important to the Department of Education than seeking to ensure that every child is able to fulfil his or her potential. It is important for our society, our economy and our future that that opportunity be afforded to every child, regardless of their circumstances.

There are two key issues highlighted in the NIAO report: raising attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and closing the gap between them and their more affluent peers. We are successfully raising the bar. Every year, more children who are entitled to free school meals receive real and important qualifications, including the significant benchmark of five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths.

As paragraph 3.19 of the report highlights:

In 2006, just over 26% of our children on free school meals achieved that important benchmark. By 2019, that had almost doubled, to 50%, which was a 24 percentage point increase. That is real and significant progress, and I pay tribute to our school leaders, teachers and support staff, who deliver high-quality education, often in difficult circumstances.

We have an education system with significant strengths that performs well internationally and has many of the features of top-performing systems. Those include having a highly qualified teaching workforce, having a culture of self-evaluation, creating ownership of improvement and having a flexible curriculum that allows space for creativity and innovation. For example, the international performance of our primary-school pupils in large-scale assessments of maths, science and reading, including the performance of our more disadvantaged pupils, has been consistently excellent. Northern Ireland's pupils are among the world's top performers in reading and maths. The outcomes for our 15-year-olds in post-primary in the most recent programme for international student assessment (PISA) study were also strong, with our pupils performing significantly above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average.

As well as the strong improvement in overall attainment at GCSE level, the attainment gap between children who are entitled to free school meals and those who are not, again measured by the achievement of five-plus GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths, has also narrowed by 3·1 percentage points, or almost 10%. That is progress, but we want and need to go further. We need to work continually to narrow the gaps in attainment.

As the Committee will be aware, closing the gap in educational performance between the better-off and the less well-off is a key challenge for every country across the world. When we look at how we compare with other countries, the data from the OECD studies tells us that the attainment gap between more affluent and more disadvantaged learners is smaller in Northern Ireland than the OECD average. Nevertheless, we want to do more to reduce that differential further. In tackling the issue, it is important to recognise that educational attainment is complex and that many factors outside the school impact on a child's educational outcomes.

There is compelling evidence to support the importance of early years interventions for children's social, emotional and cognitive development and for enhancing their educational prospects and their health and well-being into school and well beyond. The Sure Start programme targets children in areas of greatest disadvantage, who will derive the greatest benefit from additional early years support. DE has invested significantly in the Sure Start programme since 2006, increasing the annual budget from £9 million to almost £30 million in the current year. We have created 15 additional projects and extended the boundaries of existing projects, and, this year, we are expanding into a further 22 areas. We have also enhanced the depth and quality of support available in Sure Start. Since 2014, the Department has continually worked to improve how it evidences outcomes for children and families attending Sure Start, and the report acknowledges that and reflects the positive impact of Sure Start interventions.

The NIAO report quite rightly highlights the point that the Department needs to be able to show how TSN funding has been used and that there is a real return on that investment. All the evidence indicates that giving schools the autonomy to lead on appropriate interventions and to provide tailored local solutions to individual problems is the most effective way in which to improve outcomes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that has been the approach in Northern Ireland.

Undeniably, the sustained period of industrial action from 2016 to 2020, followed by the onset of the COVID pandemic, has brought challenges to our accountability framework. The 2020 workload agreement has contributed to a more positive environment, however. 'A Fair Start', the recently published report from the expert panel on educational underachievement, highlighted the need for significantly more investment to help address the education gap, with an enhanced focus on early years. 'A Fair Start' provides an important opportunity for us to refocus and to reinforce our efforts on tackling educational disadvantage in collaboration with other Departments and sectors. Minister McIlveen has indicated her desire to expedite implementation of the report's recommendations.

In conclusion, the Audit Office report has raised important issues that we take very seriously. Although significant progress has been made on improving educational outcomes for socially disadvantaged children, we recognise that there is more to be done, and we are committed to maintaining our focus on that key issue. We are now happy to take any questions, Chair, that the Committee may have.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): OK. Do any of your colleagues want to add anything before I begin the questioning? No? Thank you very much.

The Committee was concerned last week to hear about the issue of accountability, and, as we continue our work on this inquiry, we will explore that. Early intervention, which you mentioned in your presentation, is more effective and more cost-effective if we can get that intervention at the earliest possible point. That is understood by government, but, all too often, the Committee hears examples of that early intervention not happening. As such, the economies of scale are key. I do not like using such terms when we are talking about children's education, because we are talking about young people, and each of their circumstances is different. There is no doubt that it would be completely unreasonable for anyone to suggest that the Department of Education can provide solutions to the issues on its own. The Department, in conjunction with the Education Authority (EA), will not be able to provide solutions to the problems. There needs to be a joined-up approach taken across the Departments here at Stormont, working with our regional colleges and universities.

My constituency of North Belfast, including the greater Shankill, which traverses North Belfast and West Belfast, is one of the areas most deeply affected by these issues, and it has been for years. That is why I was really pleased when the group was appointed to produce the 'A Fair Start' report. Mary Montgomery, who is the principal of the Boys' Model, gave excellent leadership; Kathleen O'Hare is the former principal of Hazelwood Integrated College and gave excellent leadership in North Belfast and in Londonderry before that; and Jackie Redpath has been working in the field of education for some time.

How do we get to the point at which we can deliver an effective joined-up approach to tackling the issue? There are shelves bowing with pressure from similar reports that have been produced year after year after year but have not necessarily led to the outcome that we wanted.

There is no doubt that hundreds of millions of pounds has been invested in the issues, but we have not yet got the solution. How can we make a difference this time?

Dr Browne: You have raised a number of issues there, including the importance of early intervention, with which we agree. Early intervention means not just early years but early intervention in the genesis of any particular problem to ensure that it is tackled as effectively as possible and to save costs down the track. That is at the forefront of the mind of all Departments. There is a strong focus on early intervention.

You also mentioned the issue of working across Departments and collaboration. That is a long-standing issue. The new Programme for Government, with its outcomes focus, requires and drives that cooperation. Outcome 12, for which this Department is responsible in the outcomes delivery plan, states that we give every child a good start in life, but that cannot be delivered by any one Department.

That very Programme for Government therefore requires collaboration and cooperation across Departments, and that is happening. We have very close contacts with a range of Departments. For example, the most obvious one in the early years is our close cooperation with the Department of Health. Sure Start is delivered through a service level agreement with the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB), so we have very close connections there.

I am sure that we will come back to this later in the session, but, in taking forward the recommendations of 'A Fair Start', the Minister is very keen that we engage with other Departments. She has already met a number of Ministers. We have established a programme board. It includes representatives from other Departments, in order to make sure that they can all contribute to the implementation of the report.

The whole aspect of joined-up government is really critical. I took the opportunity to visit a number of schools in north Belfast a few weeks ago, and I met Mary Montgomery and others. I was in Mercy College, Holy Cross Boys' Primary School and Cliftonville Integrated Primary School, and the key point that was made was about that cooperation across Departments and also the link between schools and the community, and the importance of that.

We are therefore very mindful of the importance of that cooperation and collaboration. There is still work to be done to make sure that it is as effective as it can be, but it is something on which we are very focused.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): You may be aware that the Committee has produced two inquiry reports: one on the capability and capacity of the Civil Service and one on special educational needs. From doing both of those, the Committee is concerned to know that that joined-upness does not come naturally to the Civil Service. We have asked for an early meeting with the new head of the Civil Service to discuss those issues, because we fear and have expressed concerns that there is a silo mentality there and a culture that does not lend itself to working across government. You mentioned the Education Minister, but she will need the support of the Economy Minister for the regional colleges and of the Communities Minister for the moneys that need to go into supporting much of the work about which you have talked.

I met the principal of Mercy College recently, and I hope to visit the school next month. Members will have examples from their own constituency as well. We absolutely cannot afford that silo mentality to continue if we are to address this issue.

There are 47 recommendations that flowed out of the expert panel on educational underachievement in the 'A Fair Start' report. I am not asking you what action you have taken on those 47 action points that it has set out. We agreed last week to write to Dr Purdy and his team. We asked them to come before the Committee, and I think that they are coming next month, so we will have that conversation with them. Has work commenced on the 47 action points, not just in your Department and working with the EA but across government?

Dr Browne: I will make a few comments, and Alison can then come in with a bit more detail. The answer is that, yes, work has started on that. The current Minister set aside some £4 million this year to enable us to make a start on some of the early actions that can be put in place from 'A Fair Start'. As I said, we have made some progress on establishing a programme board and engaging with the various Departments. Alison may want to say more on the detail of that.

Ms Alison Chambers (Department of Education): Yes. As Dr Browne mentioned, we have established programme management arrangements and are setting up the individual projects underneath all 47 actions that are to be taken forward. The Department of Health, the Department for the Economy and the Department for Communities are all represented, and the Minister is having individual meetings with them. I also welcome the recommendation in the action plan on monitoring and reporting at the highest level. We are talking to the permanent secretary of the Executive Office about how we might do that to best effect with the First Minister and the deputy First Minister twice a year, and, in our presentation to the Education Committee yesterday, it recommended that the Minister should make a statement twice a year on progress on the action plan.

We have the costed action plan, which is very valuable to us in itemising the issues that need to be taken forward. We have some quick wins, but it is a short-, medium- and long-term plan. By the end of the sixth year, we are looking at an investment of £73 million, of which £50 million would go towards the early years interventions that are itemised in the action plan. For example, the EA is working with us on a toolkit for educating boys. Work has already started on that. We are looking at work to support teacher professional learning (TPL) for teachers and leaders, and that is the sixth and seventh theme in the action plan, so there are early actions going forward. We have a budget of £4 million this year to take forward actions, and, at present, we anticipate full spend against that budget.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): I will not ask you about the medium- to long-term commitments or outcomes, but what are the quick wins?

Ms Chambers: A number of projects have started this year: a review of Sure Start's staffing structure; an independent review of targeted early years interventions, such as the Sure Start pathway fund and Toybox; enhancing the Getting Ready suite of programmes to provide a continuum of active engagement with parents; early years assessment and support services for young children with developmental delay or special educational needs; progressing a system evaluation framework and sixth-form policy; looking at alternative measures of deprivation; provision of digital devices for children who need that type of support; youth work in communities, beginning with youth work volunteers; building leadership capacity, as I mentioned, at all levels; and putting in place the essential staff to deliver against the action plan.

Two of the 47 actions have commenced. On targeting social need, the Minister wrote to all schools on 14 September asking them to complete the planner in order that effective practice in using that part of school budgets could be reported on and shared more widely. Under key area 5 of 'A Fair Start', action v is about the development of:

That should be designed in consultation with the community and young people. In that regard, our new advertising campaign, titled Try and Stop Me, launched on 20 September, and that was developed in consultation with young people and parents from socio-economically deprived backgrounds and is about instilling hope and aspiration in our young people. Those projects have all started. They are short-, medium- and long-term projects, but they have started this year.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): I have one more point to make and then I will houl my whisht and bring others in.

I sit on the suicide health information networking education (SHINE) forum in greater Shankill in north Belfast, and that group basically includes the principals, or their representatives, from Boys' Model, Girls' Model, Belfast Royal Academy and Hazelwood. In fact, we also have a primary-school principal from greater Shankill principals' group. About six months ago, she was telling us about how that school had to get professional help with mental health and general well-being for children in primary schools, and the representatives of the post-primary schools all say the same thing. They are having to use front-line money for education to buy in that professional help, because they are not able to access enough. We made that point to the EA during our special educational needs inquiry. It seems to me that, with such issues, where a principal is having to spend money that is there for education, there needs to be greater joined-upness among the Public Health Agency (PHA), the Department of Health, the Department for Communities and so on for that professional help to be bought in, rather than for schools to be using money that is meant to be used elsewhere. Budgets are tight anyway for principals, and I say that as a governor of two schools.

Greater collaboration in that area is absolutely essential, because, frankly, it is so frustrating for principals when they cannot get their children the help and support that they need, because the effects then ripple through the classroom, as other children become affected, and also through the familial home.

Mr McHugh: Tá fáilte romhaibh uilig. You are very welcome here this afternoon. There are a number of questions that I want to raise. How useful is it to use eligibility for free school meals as the yardstick for identifying children from a deprived background and to use it as a means of allocating resources?

Dr Browne: Eligibility for free school meals is widely used as an indicator, in education and beyond, as a means of identifying children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It does have its drawbacks, but its strengths are that it is specific to the pupil, rather than being area-based, and is updated every year. It gives us a good, readily available and updatable measure of social deprivation. Studies that have been done to look at the relationship between free school meal entitlement (FSME) and social deprivation show a high correlation between higher levels of free school meals as an indicator of social deprivation and lower levels of attainment.

It is not a perfect measure, and there are other measures that can be used for other policies, such as the Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measure (NIMDM), an area-based multiple deprivation measure. Those can be used in certain circumstances. For schools, the fact that eligibility for free school meals relates to pupils and is updated every year is a really important feature, and the research demonstrates that there is a strong association between it and social deprivation.

Mr McHugh: It is specific to the pupil, yet it seems to be the case that, when resources are allocated to different schools and so on, it is used only as a top-up to the school budget, as opposed to its being specific to any particular strategy in the school. I query whether schools have a strategy per se. Is it the responsibility of the Department of Education and the Education Authority to help to develop a framework that identifies programmes that are specific to pupils who require that type of assistance?

Dr Browne: There are two aspects to that question, so I will answer it in two parts. The first one is on the extent to which funding is made available to schools to address the issues that they find within them, including those that are presented by children who are from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. That is why we have an element in the formula based on free school meals. That provides extra funding so that schools can take account of the issues that those young people present in the school and address them. Schools and school principals are best placed to make those kinds of decisions on the ground.

Secondly, there can be other tailored programmes, such as numeracy and literacy programmes, that are outside the school budget and are targeted very specifically at particular groups of pupils and may use eligibility for free school meals or some other measure. Those programmes can be directed specifically. The funding can be earmarked for them, and they can be provided in addition to the school's local management of schools (LMS) budget. We take a dual approach. Some funding goes into the budget for the school principals to identify issues, while some is associated with tailored programmes that address specific aspects of any problem that we have.

Mr McHugh: How effective is the targeting of special needs resources in our schools?

Dr Browne: The onus is on school leaders — principals and boards of governors — to identify through their school development planning their priorities for the expenditure of the funding that they receive. In doing so, they are assisted by the Department through information that we provide on benchmarking with similar types of schools and the attainment levels of other schools that have similar circumstances.

It is for the school leaders to identify what their priorities are and to determine what exactly they put their resources towards. Those plans are monitored by the Education Authority and the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS). If there is an inspection, the inspectorate will look at those plans to make sure that clear targets have been identified and resources are being used in the right way.

That is one way in which the schools are accountable. The disappointing aspect for us has been the returns that have been made to the Department so far on the TSN planner, which would have given us more detailed information. All the information that we have, whether from the returns that were made or the NIAO survey that is in the report, tell us that schools are directing the funding that they get for social deprivation towards the right sort of things: supporting teacher development, smaller classes or smaller group teaching and the sort of materials that are required to support those children and young people. While the returns are not as comprehensive as we would like, they all tell us the same story, and that gives us some assurance that the funding is being used appropriately.

Mr McHugh: Thank you. Go raibh maith agat.

Mr Muir: I thank everyone for coming here today. I have been on the PAC since March last year and, on reflection, this is a very different sort of inquiry. Some of the inquiries that we do are very focused on financial issues and stuff like that, whereas this is much broader. These are massive policy issues, and the line of questioning around this is, obviously, very different. This is not about a lift failure; this is about young people and educational underachievement, which affects wider society.

I went through all the reports — to be honest, I read all this stuff yesterday — and a couple of things stand out to me. I am interested to get your views in relation to them. One is about value for money and the effectiveness of the financial interventions. That is not to say that any of the money that is being spent to address educational underachievement and the gaps is not worthwhile: it is. However, how do we assure ourselves that we are spending that money in the best way possible to get the return?

There is a methodology for allocating the new targeting social need funding. My understanding of the generality here is that, once it goes to the school, it is up to the school to decide how to spend it. I am interested to know your perspective on whether there should be more prescription as to how that money is spent to ensure that the outcomes are measured a bit better. Obviously we want to have a localised approach in relation to this, but it seems that the money is allocated and can then be spent in different ways.

One of the comments that I saw when reading through the stuff —.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): May I interrupt you for just a second? Will members who are joining us remotely please mute their devices when they are not speaking? Thank you. Sorry, Mr Muir.

Mr Muir: No, you are fine.

One of the things that I noted was that 70% of respondents indicated that, in spending the money, they used the TSN moneys to fund additional teaching assistants. The question is whether that is actually the best way to spend the money. My question to you is: should we be more prescriptive as to how the new TSN money is spent? What more can be done to improve reporting and measurement to ensure that we get value for money?

The last one really sticks out to me. As I said at the beginning, this is a very different inquiry. On page 53 of the Audit Office report, at paragraph 3.38:

— that is something that the Chair touched on —

From your perspective, is everything being done on a cross-departmental basis to try to address that wider societal issue? To be honest, I sit on the board of governors of a school, and I am very confident that schools do an awful lot that they can do to address those issues. Obviously, we are here to explore whether more can be done, but this is a wider societal issue. The concern that I have, which the Chair shares, is that cross-departmental working does not come naturally in Northern Ireland. We have seen that on major capital projects, where we were saying that they are actually separate legal entities, because getting people to work together is much harder. From your perspective, is all that can be done being done on cross-departmental working?

I know that was a very long series of questions, but I think that this issue is less about going, "When did you identify that the lifts were wrong? When did they collapse? Who is to blame?'. To be honest, this is more about wider policy issues, and blame cannot be clearly apportioned to any particular body or organisation.

Dr Browne: I will do my best to answer that range of questions. The prominence of the school and the board of governors, working along with the principal, is at the very core to our approach to education. The policy that is set out in Every School a Good School, which remains our key policy on school improvement, is that principals and boards of governors, who are professionals — principals are professionals — are best placed to determine the requirements of their school, as they know all the circumstances, they know the pupils, and they are professionals. The school development plan is the basis and the mechanism through which all of that is done. We believe that it is appropriate to put primacy on school principals and boards of governors. That is why there is funding for that in the formula. We support them in doing that through the Education Authority and the CCMS. Where schools run into difficulties, the school development service and the school improvement service within the EA can support them. That is likewise the case with the CCMS.

From a departmental perspective, we share best practice and research to ensure that schools are aware of findings. We make information available to schools so that they can compare their performance with other schools in similar circumstances and see whether there are areas in which they can improve. The inspectorate inspects schools, but district inspectors are also in touch with schools on a regular basis and can give schools advice and support to help them in what they do. We support schools in a range of ways to tackle what are, as you say, very complex and intractable issues.

In all of that, we should not lose sight of the fact that there has been very significant improvement. If we look at the performance of pupils who are eligible for free school meals, we can see that the number achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs, including English and maths, which is a tough level for many young people, has increased by 24 percentage points in the period in question. We can put that in a greater context if we look at the trend before 2010 and at the trend after 2010, when a lot of initiatives were put in place following and at the same time as the last PAC report. In the years up to 2010, the improvement was somewhere in the region of just over 1% per year. Over the subsequent period, up to 2019, that rate of improvement for pupils who were eligible for free school meals doubled. In fact, in the past five years, it has trebled. There is clear evidence that the rate of improvement among disadvantaged pupils is increasing, which supports the fact that a lot of the initiatives that have been put in place are having an effect.

Well, OK, that is an internal measure for Northern Ireland, but how are we doing internationally? I mentioned earlier that the international surveys at primary and post-primary level demonstrate that our children and young people perform amongst the highest in the world and that our disadvantaged pupils outperform their more affluent peers in other OECD countries in reading, for example. The research also demonstrates that social deprivation is not as strong a predictive factor of overall achievement in Northern Ireland as it is in other OECD countries. All of that supports the thesis that what we are doing is having an impact. Of course, we want to do more. We want to be able to close the gaps that are there. You mentioned some of the ways that will help us to do that, which really involve cross-departmental working. I want to assure the Committee that, while the process is never perfect, Departments work very hard to try to work together. It is not easy to do, but there are a lot of cross-departmental groups and there is a lot of cross-departmental working. We work very closely with Health, we work with the Department for the Economy, we work with DFC and we work with the Department of Justice. A lot of cooperation and collaboration goes on.

The other aspect that you mentioned was the community: how we deal with interaction between schools and communities and how community issues can play into schools. One thing that struck me during my visits a few weeks ago was the amount of work that principals and schoolteachers have to do to get the children into a position where they can actually learn. It was not so much about clearing away the issues; you deal with them the whole way through, as you are trying to help the children and teach them. There are very significant issues there. We have a number of initiatives — they are listed in the report, so I will not go through all of them — such as our extended schools programme and our full service school programmes, which are designed to improve links with the community. The 'A Fair Start' report recommends a further initiative specifically on that — a reducing educational disadvantage programme — with a suggested budget of £10 million. We want to work to see whether we can develop a better model there to try to improve linkages with the community and improve outcomes.

Mr Muir: There are a few things that I want to come back on. One of the issues is about how good examples of best practice in schools with high levels of free school meals and narrowing the gap in attainment are examined and shared. The other one is about engagement with the community. Let us be frank: when a child or young person goes to school or college at approximately 9.00 am, they do so from the community and from a family background. I have extreme admiration for the staff and the leadership within schools across Northern Ireland for the effort that they make with those young people when they turn into that school or college in the morning. Let us be really clear about this, because some of those young people come from very difficult backgrounds. The issue for me is what happens once they are in that educational environment.

Over the past 19 months, with lockdowns and all the rest of it, children were not going to their educational environments, and we saw the impact of that. To be honest, I do not think that that has been fully documented and understood; history will judge that. This has been touched on, but the level of intervention from other Departments to assist schools in dealing with those issues when the young person is there, particularly around mental health counselling and all the rest of it, is not where it should be. I would like to leave today with an assurance that that has been acknowledged and that there will be more exploration into how to provide support. I see staff and leaders in schools going way above and beyond their legal duties to deal with those issues and help the young people. What more is being done in that area, and how is best practice being shared?

Dr Browne: I can only agree with you about the commitment of our school professionals. The school principals tell me about the number of their teachers who arrive at the children's doors in order to encourage them to get to school. They may arrive early for a breakfast as part of one of our extended school programmes. Even getting the children into school can be a significant issue.

We have had a number of studies of best practice. The Department completed the STAR — situation, task, action, result — studies, which are referenced in the report. Further studies, which we have shared with schools as examples of best practice, were undertaken by the Education and Training Inspectorate. There is also the expertise and knowledge that comes from the inspectorate in its visits to schools, the school improvement service within the Education Authority and a similar service in CCMS.

On what works in schools, the report identifies where the funding goes. I talk to school principals about this. When they talk about small classes, they do not mean putting everyone together in small classes, which may be a misinterpretation. In Mercy College Belfast and Belfast Boys' Model School, there is small group teaching. They call them different names in different schools, but there are things like access classes for children who have particular difficulties. Then you can move from an access class into a progression class and from a progression class to what might be termed a mainstream class. Those are the types of small group teaching and small classes that they are referring to; they are not just talking about employing more teachers and putting everybody into smaller classes. It is about focused support for the children and young people, which is what works very effectively. All the research tells us that the most significant factor in improving outcomes for all children, but particularly disadvantaged children, is the quality of the teachers. There needs to be continuous professional development. We are blessed that we have an ongoing supply of highly qualified teachers, but that is not the case everywhere.

We continue to work with other Departments. You asked specifically about counselling and mental health, which is a huge and growing issue that has been exacerbated by COVID-19, as you mentioned. We have an emotional health and well-being strategy, which was launched relatively recently. There is counselling support for schools, but we acknowledge that there is severe pressure in that area. It is taking some time to meet demand. The Minister is looking at bringing forward a primary-school counselling pilot. She hopes to be able to announce that in the near future. Work is being done there. We work with Health. We have to acknowledge that health professionals and the health sector are also under pressure. There are demands in the education sector that go on to Health, and Health is dealing with its own pressures. We work closely with Health colleagues to try to meet the pressures and to make sure that children get the support that they need.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): Thank you very much. Other than schools, is it the intention to talk to, for example, football clubs? Hundreds of thousands of young people, including, increasingly, girls, are involved in football clubs. From your previous incarnation, you might be aware of Woodvale FC in my area. I declare an interest: I am the president of the club. It set up a homework club. One of the coaches was a teacher in the Boys' Model. It received initial funding from the Rory Foundation, and Urban Villages has stepped in and given some money for that to continue. The idea is that, when those young people, most of whom go to the Boys' Model and know the coach because he is a teacher in the school, come to the football club, they do their homework and whatever, and then they go out and play football, basketball or whatever at an excellent facility called Clarendon, which is just off the Crumlin Road.

Mark, I do not think that any of us thinks that it is easy for Departments to work together, but we were concerned when a former permanent secretary in the Department of Finance explained to the Committee just how difficult it was for that cooperation and collaboration to happen. We were disappointed, and maybe even shocked, to hear that. That needs to be addressed. I am also thinking about the likes of integrated services and people like that, who work with many young people who are deeply affected in our community. It is not just a school context; it is a sporting and community context. There is a bigger reach for those issues.

Dr Browne: Maybe I should declare an interest: I manage a football team that used to play against Woodvale, so I have had contact with it. As you said, I was, in a previous incarnation, responsible for Urban Villages. Linsey Farrell, who has just joined us, was previously involved in Urban Villages as well. I assure you that there are those kinds of connections, not just in Urban Villages but through the Communities in Transition project, which is another Executive Office initiative that is part of the tackling paramilitarism, criminality and organised crime programme. We will maintain the connections that we already have and build on them.

You are quite right to say that there are other ways to reach young people. The 'A Fair Start' report refers to the importance of youth work and work with football clubs and so forth as a way of making connections with young people and encouraging them. That is the sort of thing that is envisaged in the reducing educational disadvantage (RED) programme, and it is something that we want to work on.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): I also declare an interest as a member of the Scout Association. The likes of the uniformed organisations — Scouts, the Boys' Brigade, the Girls' Brigade, the Guides and so on — are hugely important as well in that reach. I pay tribute to Linsey Farrell for the leadership that she gave in that area.

Ms Chambers: In developing the RED programme, we have established an external stakeholder reference group, comprising members of the sorts of organisations that you have just spoken about. It will be involved in the co-design process of that programme.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): Excellent. I am conscious that you have two colleagues: Linda and Suzanne. Are there any comments that you would like to make?

Dr Suzanne Kingon (Department of Education): Just to mention that we do see very effective community partnerships. It would be wrong not to mention the curriculum sports programme and the work that is done by the IFA and the GAA in schools to enhance sport in the curriculum and joining up so that there is a more holistic approach to young people's development.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): OK, that is great, Suzanne. Linda, is there anything that you want to add or are you OK?

Dr Browne: Linda will probably come in on Sure Start when we get to that.

Mr Irwin: We all accept that early years are very important. Is there not a job of work to be done on parental understanding of that? You can throw millions at something, but if you do not get the foundation right, it is very difficult to make headway.

Dr Browne: You are absolutely right. The whole aspect of parenting and the family is a key part of Sure Start's work. Alison mentioned some of the developments in Sure Start — what she called the Getting Ready suite of programmes. One of those programmes is called Getting Ready for Toddler and the other is Getting Ready for Baby. Those programmes were developed in a cross-departmental way with the Department of Health in order to support parents to ensure that they get what they need to help their children to learn and to be able to cope with the various difficulties that children can bring. Sure Start has children, parents and families as its focus, very much in line with what you were saying.

Mr Irwin: When a child reaches 8, 9 or ten years of age, they probably understand better but, in those very early years, the child does not fully understand the importance. That is where I see parents being vital in that situation.

Dr Browne: That is right. One of the key things is ensuring that those families and parents that need support feel able to come forward and access it. I visited a Sure Start project a few weeks ago where they talked about the approach of "targeted universalism". That sounds like a contradiction, but what they meant was that, in any disadvantaged area where Sure Start operates, everyone is eligible to come forward for the services. When they come forward and get engaged in things like Stay and Play and the other things that they do, that is when those who are running those services are able to identify, perhaps, some other issues that need to be followed through on, whether that is speech and language or some other support that the family needs. That is where the trust is developed between families and those who are providing the service so that they will engage in accessing the services. It is really important that that is open to everyone initially and, then, that any additional support can be channelled to the family. That is about trust and relationships.

Mr Irwin: Thank you.

Mr Beggs: One of the aspects of the report that I am interested in is the issue of absenteeism. I do not see that covered in terms of TSN funding. The report says that, since 2010, there has been no central record of:

Why is that? Why is there no central record so that best practice lessons can be learned and passed to others?

Dr Browne: The issue since 2010 has been that, prior to that, the returns as to how TSN funding was spent were made to finance branch. The total funding went out as part of LMS, and returns were made to finance branch. Details were available as to precisely what that funding was spent on. With the advent of the Every School a Good School policy and the school development planning regulations coming in, it was felt that, rather than having a separate return to finance branch that stood on its own, it was important to link that into schools' priorities and planning and to make sure that schools, as part of their priorities, were considering what it was that they needed to do around numeracy and literacy for disadvantaged children and how they should use the resources that they got, including, but not only, the TSN resources. That is what that return was designed to achieve.

Unfortunately, as we were developing the new process further, we got into the whole issue of action short of strike, and the returns that we have received have been less than we would have wished.

However, information is available from the 6% that were returned and from the 9% in the NIAO survey. We also get information from the inspectors and when we speak to principals. As I said, when I visited principals, I asked them how they use the funding. They all tell us the same thing about what they use it for. They use it for teachers, for the small-group teaching that I referred to and for targeted support for children and young people. From a series of different angles, we are getting similar information back about how schools use funding.

Attendance is an interesting one, because one of the points in the report was that not all the funding is spent specifically on pupils who are eligible for free school meals. There is a whole range of issues around that, but, in schools, some policies are better as whole-school policies that apply to everyone. Attendance is a good example. You have to have the same attendance approach for all pupils, but, in practice, when you apply that attendance policy, whether or not it applies to all pupils, those who will benefit most from it will be those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Pastoral care is another example. Pastoral care is for every pupil, regardless of the reasons why they come forward, but, in practice, pupils who are from disadvantaged backgrounds are most likely to come forward. Funding can be used to implement whole-school policies, but, in practice, those from disadvantaged backgrounds will benefit most.

Attendance is a key indicator. It is a key indicator for issues in a school and one that we always look at. Inspectors will always look at it and seek to act on it. It is an early warning sign. I know that you have been particularly interested in it, and you have asked some questions on it, but it is an early warning light.

Mr Beggs: I noticed a University College London report that found that, in a ranking of 100 pupils, a pupil can expect to move down one place for every eight days of absence. That particularly adversely affects pupils from low-income households. In what I have seen to date, I do not see any priority being given to the issue of absenteeism, which particularly adversely affects those young people. The number of education welfare officers has declined over the years. Is there not a gap in the approach to getting to children in school?

I noticed in a recent government report that, when comparing pupils who have missed less than 5% of school to pupils who have missed 15% to 20% of school, those with good attendance were two and a half times more likely to get five or more GCSEs, including maths and English. Surely that is the fundamental aspect that needs to be addressed either by education welfare services or through the TSN funding.

Dr Browne: You are absolutely right. Attendance at school is critical to ensure that children benefit from their education. Every school has an attendance policy. Schools in disadvantaged areas will have a particular focus on ensuring that the children come to school. As I mentioned in response to a previous question, when I visited Holy Cross Boys’ Primary School, I was told that the teachers go out to the houses, knock on doors, talk to the parents and encourage the children to come in. They very actively pursue attendance. The TSN funding supports that sort of thing.

There have been a number of initiatives. Various advertising initiatives have been put in place by the Department, such as for the Miss School = Miss Out strategy. The Education and Training Inspectorate has completed various case studies around the challenge of improving pupil attendance at schools, and those have been made available to schools. Best practice is being made available to schools, and it is for the education welfare officers to follow up on that if a school is concerned about attendance.

Mr Beggs: The recent figures that you released are quite horrifying. On an area basis, in disadvantaged areas such as the Castle Demesne in Ballymena, 35% of post-primary pupils have less than 85% attendance at school. In my constituency, in the Sunnylands area, over 30% have less than 85% attendance at school. In the Gardenmore area, almost a quarter of the pupils have less than 85% attendance at schools. How can the pupils benefit from school funding, if they are not there? Do you think that sufficient resources are being targeted at that specific area? If there is good practice, are other schools being made aware of that practice?

When my dad was a vice principal 30 or 40 years ago, he used to visit homes to encourage attendance. That was an important aspect of encouraging school attendance and ensuring that children made the most of the opportunities that were there. What is actually being done, and why are figures so horrible in some situations that 35% of post-primary pupils in disadvantaged areas have less than 85% school attendance?

Dr Browne: As I said, all schools have an absenteeism and attendance strategy that they follow. The issues will be more intense in some areas, and that can be for a range of reasons, some social and some economic. It is something that schools need to deal with. In dealing with the issue, they can go down the route of working through the education and welfare officers and working with the families. Schools spend their TSN money on home-school liaison. Home-school liaison is an important aspect of making clear to parents the importance of education and of parents valuing education and therefore wanting to encourage their children to go to school. There is no doubt, however, that there are issues in some areas. It goes back to the wider aspect of how we ensure that education is valued, that it is valued in all areas and that there is a good relationship between schools and parents and between schools and the community.

The point was made earlier that education cannot solve all the issues of society. Some of the issues in society impact on schools. I am sure that you are aware that, in some areas, very particular issues can lead to those sorts of issues.

Mr Beggs: I have a final question. You said a number of times that it is important to give a school the autonomy to identify the needs of its area and to target the TSN funding towards them. That is completely at odds with how SEN funding has been directed. During our previous inquiry, I questioned numerous officials and EA board members about occasions when there were multiple classroom assistants standing at the back of the classrooms — not intervening, doing nothing — just because that was the way that it worked. There was no autonomy and no ability to make better use of that funding to benefit the children. Why does one funding route have the flexibility that you are talking about, while, for another route, the money seems not to be put to best use?

Dr Browne: You have put your finger on an issue that we will look at again. How we make best use of the support that is provided for all children with special educational needs is an area with room for improvement. Part of that can be driven by the way in which the support is provided and the fact that children who are statemented have a statutory basis on which to require the support. The support is specific, and parents are very keen that it is provided for their child. You can understand why parents pursue things in that way. They get the statement and the provision is set out. They want that provision purely for their child. However, that creates some of the issues that you have described, and we will need to look at it.

Mr Beggs: You have said that you will look at it. It was, I think, a year ago, at an inquiry session in this room, that the issue was highlighted. When are we going to go forward on it?

Dr Browne: Again, these are things that have been legislated for. The legislature has put them in place to ensure that provision is there for children and young people. There is always a balance to be struck between ensuring that those who need the support get the support and ensuring that that support, taken collectively, is best used. There is a tension between those two aspects.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): On that point, Mr Beggs, we agreed, at the time of the production of the report on SEN, to ask the EA to come in on a six-monthly basis. We will do that, and those questions can be put directly to the EA. It is not fair to put them to the permanent secretary.

I take your point, and I commend the teachers in Holy Cross. In so many ways, it is interesting that north Belfast is leading the way on these issues. I remember that, as a wee boy, when I was in Scouts, if I did not go, my leader would have been at my door. When I was a leader, I did the same thing: went to doors and asked, because the Troubles were still on in those days and we were concerned and wanted to see young people involved in something positive where I lived, in Woodvale. I still do. In reality, many of the teachers — there are good teachers across Northern Ireland, and I will deal with that at the end of the meeting — in the areas where those issues are particularly acute, are much more proactive simply because they need to be.

On the point that I made earlier about early intervention being cheaper and more effective — Linda might want to come in on this — is the Department clear that Sure Start reduces the need for later interventions, contributes to closing the gap and, therefore, saves the state money? Is it much more cost-effective and effective for young people's education and learning?

Dr Browne: I am happy to start by making a few comments, and I will let Linda come in with a bit more detail on that, Chair.

The activities and outcomes that have been identified for Sure Start come from and are built around research that has demonstrated what is effective in helping children to learn and progress at an early stage. Primary-school teachers tell us that, when children progress from Sure Start to primary school, they know immediately, from the child's disposition when they come into the school, whether that child has been in Sure Start. There is evidence around those aspects. From the measurements that have been put in place in Sure Start, we know the number of children whose language development is age-appropriate. That number has gone up by 24%. We know that there is a 22% reduction in those who have delayed development. Being at the right level of speech and language development plays into children and young people's achievement.

We are, of course, looking at trying to link those things through children's attendance at Sure Start. We have been collecting that information from the school census since 2015. It will take some time to track it through to see its impact as young people get further in their careers. It is a complex issue. It is not just a question of knowing that someone was in Sure Start and saying that anything that they did was the consequence of being in Sure Start. Many other factors will come into play in a person's life and will have an impact on it. It will be complex research, but we are looking into the possibility of doing it.

We can look to international research on the subject. Heckman's research in America, over 40 years, followed children involved in the Perry preschool programme. The research identified long-term benefits in career earnings and health, and in people not getting involved with the criminal justice system. It talked about a 6:1 return on investment. The research also says that it benefits not only individuals but their families. It has an intergenerational aspect. If that is taken into account, the return on investment is 9:1. We are at the early stages of thinking about how we might gather that specific information.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): That reinforces Mr Irwin's point about parental commitment, understanding and drive on those issues and about the value of education for young people.

Linda, do you want to come in?

Can you hear me?

Mrs Drysdale: Can you hear me?

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): Yes, we can now. There were sort of space noises going on there, but we can hear you now, loud and clear. When you sit forward a wee bit, it seems to work.

Mrs Drysdale: Can you hear me now?

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): Yes, but you cannot hear us, obviously.

Mrs Drysdale: Is that better? Can you hear me now?

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): Yes. We did not want you to sit through all of that and not have an opportunity to make a contribution. Go ahead.

Mrs Drysdale: Parental engagement is an essential element of the Sure Start programme. The Sure Start programme engages with parents from the minute they register that the mum is pregnant, and that is when the link with Sure Start begins. The relationship is built from those very early stages and continues until the child's fourth birthday. Many of the programmes in Sure Start are for parents. Therefore, it is about giving the parents the support and help to develop their children. The support pervades right through the Sure Start programme. As you can see from some of the testimony in the Audit Office report, the support is vital to those parents who receive it. It makes a difference and supports parents to help and develop their children.

We are continually developing measurements for that. As the report said, since 2014, we have worked on how to measure the outcomes and impact of helping children in Sure Start. We look at GCSE attainment in Sure Start and non-Sure Start areas. There has been a small improvement in that area. However, we want to continually develop how we do that. The Sure Start projects have developed measurements. The Health and Social Care Board, which administers the Sure Start programme on the Department's behalf, has measurements in place. The Department also works closely with the board to continually develop improvements.

There is research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) on the health benefits of Sure Start. The IFS determined that 31% of the cost of Sure Start can be offset because of the impact on children's health. We will explore some academic research in that vein on the educational benefits of Sure Start. We continue to work on that. We know that we need to demonstrate clearly that Sure Start has a positive impact.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): Linda, you mentioned that there has been a slight improvement since 2014. Can you give some figures on the improvement?

Mrs Drysdale: Yes. In 2017-18, the Northern Ireland average for school-leavers who achieved at least 5 GCSEs, including English and maths, was 70·6%. In Sure Start areas, the 2017-18 average was 61·8%. That improved to 62·5% in 2018-19 and 68% in 2019-2020. Therefore, it is a small improvement but it is encouraging.

The Chairperson (Mr Humphrey): That is where the Committee wants to see the greater joined-upness that we talked about earlier. It is good to see that it is on the right trajectory, but there is obviously considerable room for improvement.

All the members who indicated that they wanted to speak have asked questions. I thank Mark, Alison, Linda and Suzanne.

Without question, among UK regions, Northern Ireland's record for academic achievement is excellent. I pay tribute to the pupils and parents for that. As you have said, key leaders in our education sector, such as principals, senior management teams, governors and, of course, teachers and classroom assistants, are vital for that. However, we are talking about young people who are from challenged homes and are harder to reach. Therefore, that work needs to be further distilled and refocused, and resources need to be put in from across government. I know that the Minister has been very active and has visited a lot of schools. That is welcome because it allows the Minister to become aware of the issues.

I am pleased to hear, Mark, that you have been out. I know from my constituency work but also from his coming to the Committee that your predecessor, Mr Baker, really got it, as did Tommy O'Reilly, who was a deputy permanent secretary. They certainly understood the situation in my constituency and put extra resources in where they were needed. I have no doubt that that will also be the case with you. Indeed, frankly, that is something that the Committee would need to talk about as well.

When we meet the new head of the Civil Service, we will encourage the joined-upness that we are concerned has not been there previously. It is obviously and evidently needed. That is not to cast any aspersions at anyone before us today, those in your Department or those in any other Department, but joined-upness is clearly an issue, and, as you said, it is difficult.

Finally, as with the Committee's other inquiries in recent times, we reserve the right to bring you back if we have other questions. We have found that to be useful if other questions arise after we hear evidence from other people. Certainly, when we hear from Dr Purdy and his colleagues — we are looking forward to that — we may well have further questions.

Thank you very much indeed, and good afternoon to you all.