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Education Draft Budget 2011-15 - Draft Allocations and Savings Proposals
16/02/2011
This is the NIPSA Response to the Education Department's Draft Budget Proposals.
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DE Draft Budget Consultation
Room 6.03
Rathgael House
Balloo Road
BANGOR
BT19 7NA
Dear Colleague
EDUCATION DRAFT BUDGET 2011-15 – DRAFT ALLOCATIONS AND SAVINGS PROPOSALS
- This is the NIPSA response to the Education Department’s Draft Budget Proposals on behalf of its members working in the Education Sector. NIPSA represents in excess of 46,000 workers, many thousands of which work in Education, across all the sectors. This response therefore should be taken as a collective response on behalf of our members in this sector, with whom we have widely consulted during this consultation period.
- This submission from NIPSA to this Departmental Draft Budget should be considered in the context of the NIPSA response to the overall draft Executive Budget which has been forwarded to DFP. The content of this submission is also without prejudice to any comments from NIPSA in respect of public bodies which are sponsored by the Education Department
- At the outset it is important to emphasise NIPSA’s view that the public consultation should have focused on what the Executive should do collectively to ensure that adequate funding is provided for all public services. The Executive should stand firmly together and support the call on the British Government to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion, which would provide additional revenue of approximately £123bn to the Treasury and by extension, using the Barnett formula, some £3.5bn additional revenue to the Executive. Public Services and ordinary workers should not be expected to pay for the disgraceful behaviour of bankers and speculators. The public deserve better and expect more from their locally elected politicians.
- NIPSA agrees with the Minister’s view that this is not a good budget for education. We also agree that there needs to be a real debate in respect of Education and are more than willing to contribute to that debate. The starting point however should not be how to implement £300m worth of cuts in the provision of education and jobs.
- The union does not accept that it is possible, in the Minister’s words, to “protect front line services, teachers, classroom assistants and support staff” while at the same time making cuts of £300m.
- It is our own firm view that cuts of this magnitude will have a significant negative impact on the ability of Education staff to deliver the curriculum, will immeasurably damage the Education service and will have a devastating effect on children’s education for years to come.
- With the release of approximately 200 staff even before this draft budget is finalised a clear message has been sent to our members, without needing to scare-monger in any way, that many hundreds, but more likely thousands of jobs are under threat if the budget is cut by the magnitude envisaged.
- It is NIPSA’s view that all jobs in Education are important, with none more deserving than another, with no-one more deserving than another to be made redundant.
- In respect of some of the plans published in the consultation document a number of assumptions have been made, without either any clarity around the likelihood of obtaining the revenue or, equally important, an alternative if the funding streams are not achieved. For example:-
- Proposal to move £41m from capital to resource. It has been suggested that the Executive has agreed that a total of £40m could be moved from capital to resources across all Departments. There is no guarantee therefore that Education will be able to obtain all of this allocation, or indeed where the impact will be if less than £40m is granted
- On a separate but related point, it is not clear how the figure of £40m was arrived at by the Executive and why Departments are restricted to a percentage of this figure.
- Projected savings of almost £180m from the Aggregated Schools Budget. This appears to be predicated on a move to “fewer, bigger schools”, which in essence amounts to forced or coerced integration. There is scant evidence available that this ambitious vision is realisable within such a truncated timescale. Worryingly, as this equates to some 60% of the planned cuts in the budget, there is no indication of where savings of such magnitude could be achieved if this integration policy fails to materialise or is delayed. Were it to be achievable there would also undoubtedly be significant upheaval for our members.
- There is a vagueness around how the Invest to Save Fund would operate or what this money would be used for.
- It is ironic, and not lost on our members, that the Department proposes to use public money to facilitate redundancies rather than protect jobs and services.
- There has been much fanfare around the End Year Flexibility for schools in particular the agreement with DFP to commit itself to a significant portion of the £87m already “banked“. However there has been no discussion whatsoever of where this revenue will come from as it clearly has to be found from the block grant, requiring all Departments, including Education presumably, to find money to cover this shortfall. Again this would have an additional impact on jobs in Education and services to young people.
Whilst the strategic priorities for Education are laudable in themselves it is NIPSA’s view that they would be impossible to deliver on these if cuts are implemented. Whilst the document purports to have vision for the future it is singularly lacking in demonstrating how that vision could be achieved against a backdrop of such an attack on the Education budget.
In terms of the specifics of the proposals, NIPSA does not intend to make an argument for any particular part of the Education budget, in the same way that we will not get drawn into an argument which pits one service or group of workers in any one Department against another. We would however comment on a number of the proposals in general terms.
- It is contradictory in NIPSA’s opinion to suggest that areas such as Special Education Needs will be afforded funding protection while at the same time proposing to make significant cuts in “Professional Support for Schools” and “Capacity Building”.
- It seems contradictory to suggest that budgets can be cut in “Entitlement Framework” by forcing this activity onto schools that have not had a corresponding reallocation of budget to undertake this role.
- It seems contradictory to indicate that eligibility for Free School Meals Entitlement will be extended, while at the same time proposing to make cuts in school meal provision.
- There is lack of clarity in respect of “Administration and Management (DE and Arm’s Length Bodies)” about how the Department intends to make cuts of some £15m or £17m per year “by bearing down further” on staff management and administration costs in Education and Library Boards and Arm’s Length Bodies. Staff in these organisations undertake a necessary role, with it would appear, little appreciation from the Department or Minister for the valuable work they do. To achieve cuts of this nature under this particular heading would result in job losses of at least 500-600, but probably more. The phrase “bearing down further” is intended presumably and has been taken by our members to be a very real threat on their jobs and prospects of remaining in employment. When this figure is added to the projected cuts in professional support for schools of some £30m, it is clear that the projected job losses in just these 2 specific areas could amount to upwards of 2000. It is impossible to take that many jobs out of the system without a substantial impact on the ability to deliver quality education to young people.
- The proposal to force prospective employees to pay for the Access NI charge for pre-employment vetting checks is objectionable. It is the employer which requires the check to be carried out and job applicants, the vast majority of which will likely be unemployed, should not have to bear this cost. In any decent society those without work should not be penalised by the system which is supposed to be there to support them.
- Apart from the above principled position, it is impossible to envisage how this saving could be achieved in what is proposed to be such a contracting Education Sector. To achieve savings of £1m as estimated with a cost of around £30 per job applicant, this would suggest that notwithstanding the small administration cost associated with paying this fee at present that the Education Sector intends to employ an additional 30,000 workers per annum. Hardly likely.
It is not clear whether these budget proposals have been the subject of an Equality Impact Assessment or a Rural Impact Assessment. It is clear that certain proposed cuts e.g. school transport are very likely to have a disproportionate impact on those living in rural communities.
All of the above would suggest to NIPSA that the Departments stated intention “to ensure that every learner fulfils their full potential” and stated focus of resources to “tackle the unacceptable levels of educational achievement” are not realisable within this budget allocation.
In conclusion it is NIPSA’s view that this proposed budget and consequential inevitable cuts will have a serious detrimental impact on education provision to young people, our members in terms of job losses and upheaval and also the wider community in terms of the long term requirements of the Education sector to make a sustained contribution to preparing young people for future employment, particularly in times of economic depression.
Yours sincerely
PADDY MACKEL
Assistant Secretary
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