| 2
CONSULTATION DOCUMENT
The consultation document is comprehensive and provides sufficient
detail to allow meaningful consultation. However one crucial
element is missing and should be added in future years –
an explanation of major differences between the previous year’s
final Priorities and Budget figures and the actual Outturn
figures. Departments should also provide details of cuts already
determined to base budgets.
Table 1 attached shows that recurrent Outturn for 2003/04
for schools was £60.6m less than the final Priorities
and Budget figure while capital Outturn was £78.3m more
than Budget. Paragraph 143 refers to a change in classification
of ‘capital grants’ but it is unclear whether
this explains these major differences. An explanation is required.
Any significant movement of base funding from recurrent to
capital inevitably has a detrimental impact on the ability
to deliver base services.
3 2004/05 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ALLOCATION – CURRENT
EXPENDITURE
Last year’s draft Priorities and Budget document showed
a projected increase for recurrent Schools of 7.0% and 2.3%
for recurrent Youth (Table 2 attached). This was the basis
of last year’s consultation. In the final Priorities
and Budget document, these increases had changed to 5.8% and
1.9%.
However, this year when the 2004/05 figures are now compared
with the 2003/04 outturn, the percentage increase for recurrent
Schools was only 2.01% and for Youth was a negative increase
of 0.74%. No explanation was given for this change, and while
there may not have been any deliberate intention to mislead
in last years consultation, the lack of explanation is unsettling.
The schools 2.01% is shockingly different from what was expected
from the consultation on the draft Priorities and Budget figure
of 7%, but reflects what happened on the ground in Education.
Faced with this dreadful settlement, the Department of Education,
for the first time, directed ELBs to allocate specified amounts
to schools’ LMS budgets in order to protect the classroom.
ELBs were left with the decision about what centre school
services to cut to remain within budget. In 2004/05 two ELBs
reported an overspend situation and the remaining three boards
hope to remain within budget mainly by postponing almost all
planned maintenance. The SELB cut £3.3m from its planned
maintenance target and therefore failed to meet its target
of cutting its maintenance backlog of £22m by 6%. Instead
the backlog has increased by 8% to £24m.
4 2005/06 – 2007/08 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ALLOCATION
– CURRENT EXPENDITURE
The proposed budget for the Department of Education for the
next three years will have extremely serious consequences.
The Government states in paragraph 63 its continued commitment
to Health, Education and Transport as top priority public
services. Table 3 attached shows that spend on Education is
lower than Health, Transport and all other departments together.
This also hides the fact that Education is a victim of decisions
by other public bodies – for example, Translink imposed
an increased charge of 10% in 2004/05 on ELBs for its virtual
monopoly on school transport, making a mockery of this consultation
on where public money should be allocated. Indications are
that Translink is seeking a 7.5% increase for 2005/06. ELBs
are faced with increased costs of rates set by district councils
of, on average, 6.5%. All of these increases were funded out
of the overall increase of 2.01% for the Department of Education.
In the SELB the base increase for 2004/05 was 1.13%.
Based on previous trends and current knowledge about earmarked
funding, and assuming that schools’ LMS budgets will
be protected, it appears that the shortfall in the SELB base
centre funding from the Department of Education over the next
three years may be £6m, £10m and £12m.
5 CONSEQUENCES OF DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ALLOCATION –
CURRENT EXPENDITURE
The consequences of the current budget proposals are massive
cuts in Education services. The assumption behind this submission
is that the Common Funding Formula will be introduced on 1
April 2005 with appropriate transition funding and that consequently
the classroom will be protected in real terms. Therefore the
necessary cuts will fall on a range of centre school budgets,
which might include:
(i) Special Education – less funding for special schools,
fewer classroom assistants for children with special needs
in mainstream schools, fewer educational psychologists, fewer
education welfare officers, fewer peripatetic teachers. More
adverse publicity, tribunals and judicial reviews with outcomes
requiring boards under legislation to make the provisions
demanded, longer waiting lists, more excluded children.
(ii) Transport – cut-backs on non statutory services,
eg school crossing patrols, cut-backs on early afternoon bus
service for children under seven years, cut-backs in special
education transport, charging for certain pupils. Higher risk
of accidents to children.
(iii) Catering – review of small rural uneconomic kitchens,
investigation of alternative provision, significant increase
in the price of meals, reduced uptake, less healthy eating,
differential impact on rural communities.
(iv) Curriculum Advisory and Support Services – termination
of contracts of advisory teachers on secondment from schools,
redundancy of permanent staff, disposal of resource centres,
review of non statutory services, eg Music.
(v) School Library – reduction in funding for school
library books.
(vi) Maintenance – elimination of planned maintenance,
only health and safety and response maintenance.
(vii) Headquarters – more redundancies
Board members are extremely alarmed by such consequences which
may be necessary to contain expenditure within the proposed
allocation. Some members have publicly stated that this would
cause them a crisis of conscience and they could not support
planning for these consequences and would certainly not be
prepared to implement the consequences. This could have serious
implications for the Board.
6 PROPOSALS – DE CURRENT EXPENDITURE
The SELB proposes that Education requires additional funding
in a number of areas:-
(a) Restoration of Base Funding
The SELB planned to live within its financial allocation for
2004/05 by imposing cuts of £3.643m on its centre school
services budget of £67m approximately. The largest element
of the cuts was £3.288m in maintenance. The requirement
for this cut was driven from the increase in 2004/05 of 1.13%
and with schools being protected, this resulted in a negative
increase for centre school services.
Therefore this base funding must be restored. This equates
across all NIELBs to approximately £16m for 2005/06.
(b) Additional Funding for Pressures
The funding of £21.8m over the three years 2005/06 –
2007/08 for Special Educational Needs (SEN) is welcomed but
it is recognised that this is merely a continuation of the
£5.1m actual allocation for 2004/05 and does not address
the pressure arising from new legislation, ie Special Education
Needs and Disability Order (SENDO). Additional funding of
approximately £50m across all boards is required for
£2005/06 and for each of the following two years.
(c) Additional Funding for Charges from Other Public Bodies
If this consultation is about how public funds are allocated
in priority terms, it needs to take account of significant
charges levied by public authorities and their impact, eg
Translink obtains one third of its revenue from ELBs by increasing
its charges year on year, eg in 2004/05 by 10%. This distorts
the allocation for Education from the Secretary of State.
Additional funding of £5m is required for 2005/06.
(d) Basis of Funding
The Board fundamentally disagrees with the apparent assumption
that the funding of schools and their essential support services
can be reduced, in real terms, directly in line with the projected
fall in pupil numbers over the three years of the planning
cycle. It must be recognised that only a very small element
of the running costs of schools and support services vary
directly in line with the number of pupils. To continue to
reduce funding directly in line with falling enrolments will,
inevitably, have a destabilising effect on the education sector
in coming years as schools and boards must maintain essential
support infrastructures in order to effectively deliver services.
This applies equally to schools, catering services, home to
school transport, Curriculum Advisory Support and maintenance
as well as essential administrative support for schools.
The SELB proposes that the basis of Education funding should
be corrected to recognise the fixed nature of the vast majority
of its costs.
7. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – CAPITAL/INVESTMENT EXPENDITURE
The Board welcomes the very significant increase in resources
for capital investment of 19.1% in 2005/06, -7.6% in 2006/07,
and 29.3% in 2007/08, but would welcome further information
in the consultation document on the plans behind this significant
increase.
8. DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE, ARTS AND LEISURE
As highlighted in paragraph 2 and 3 for DE, the reduction
in recurrent funding of 15.4% for the current year 2004/05
compared to 2003/04 Outturn requires explanation.
It is understood that of the recurrent 13% or £3.4m
increase for 2005/06, £1m relates to the Strategic Investment
Board (SIB) activities and the real increase for base activities
is 10%. This must be considered with the practically flat
allocation in the following 2 years which is a cut in real
terms after inflation. This implies that the 2005/06 increase
cannot be used to expand or even to maintain services, but
must be used to plan the rationalisation of services. Consequences
of the proposed allocation might include reduced opening hours
or a reduction in the number of service points, ie closure
of Branch Libraries.
The Board proposes that the Governments stated commitment
to promote innovation, creativity and life-long-learning by
increasing annual visits to Public Libraries by 1% each year
should be reflected in a real increase for library recurrent
resources each year. The current proposals signal that the
recurrent increase for 2005/06 is merely to fund the real
reduction in 2006/07 and 2007/08.
9. Detailed comments on each chapter of the consultation document
are included in Appendix 1.
|
