Department of Education under Stormont watchdog’s spotlight

The Department of Education came under intense scrutiny from the assembly’s finance watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee this week.

Two months ago, the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) published a report on educational performance and provision in Northern Ireland.

As the five Education and Library Boards spend 90 per cent of the funding they receive from the Department of Education (DE), the public session was called to receive answers from officials about how schools have performed over a range of services.

On Wednesday April 24 the Department of Education’s Permanent Secretary Gerry McGinn came under pressure as he faced questions from Public Accounts Committee (PAC) members on a range of issues, including the “alarming” level of surplus primary and post primary places in schools right across the province.

According to the NIAO report there are 23,000 surplus primary and 12,000 secondary school places. The report showed that while surplus places are not a uniquely urban or rural problem they are particularly pronounced in the Belfast Board.

However under questioning from PAC Chairman Billy Bell, Mr McGinn explained that demographics, the provision of choice, selection and denomination issues all played a part in creating surplus places.

However he said that despite these complexities the Department was “committed to reducing surplus numbers”. This would take the form of closing “unviable” schools and the merging of common like-for-like schools in same areas.

In the past 20 years, 200 schools have closed due to their non-viability.

SDLP PAC member John Dallat highlighted targets in the report set by the board, which had to be revised twice.

Mr McGinn said targets contained in the report were based on one-year data that was incomplete, which meant targets had to be reset. He said new targets would have to be “challenging but still sufficiently realistic enough to meet”.

Mr Dallat also asked officials: “Does the Department accept that some 250,000 people between the ages of 16 and 24 have left school below literacy and numeracy levels that they have set?”

In response Deputy Permanent Secretary Stephen Peover agreed it was unacceptable that such a large cohort of pupils have less than adequate levels of reading and writing skills: He said "preventative measures" were now in place.

The Department also came under fire for leaving the compilation of information about NI’s educational system up to the NIAO. However the Department agreed they would produce an annual compendium of data, including statistics concerning the integrated sector themselves next year.

They also came under fire for paying £4 million in consultative fees, 89 per cent of which (or £3.8 million) was given to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

(AMcE)