AQO 805/22-27
Mr Eóin Tennyson
Alliance Party
Upper Bann
Tabled Date: 05/09/2024
Answered On Date: 17/09/2024
Priority Written: No
Question:
To ask the Minister of Education for an update on his Department's budgetary position.
Answer:
My Department’s latest assessment, following implementation of a number of savings, indicates that Education faces inescapable pressures currently totalling circa £190.9m. While I will continue to do everything possible to reduce this figure further, the scale of my Department’s budget shortfall is such that the savings required could only be delivered through an extensive redundancy programme. Similar to the issues faced in other Departments, we simply do not have enough money to meet the increasing demands placed on us. The Department’s additional resource allocation for 2024-25 is significantly less than what is required and leaves a considerable shortfall across the Education sector. The allocation for education, after June monitoring, means that for the second year in a row, demand-led, statutory pressures will go unfunded. Only the most limited funding is now available for Special Educational Needs, schools, transport, school meals and schools’ maintenance. This will have an extremely damaging impact on the education system, with our children with Special Education Needs facing the most significant impact. Education has been and remains significantly underfunded. This is independently evidenced by not only the Institute for Fiscal Studies in its last two comparisons of school spending per pupil across the United Kingdom, but more recently the Independent Review of Education’s report, Investing in a Better Future. Education will require substantially more funding during this budget period, if we are to avoid a significant and detrimental impact on our children and young people.
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