Northern Ireland Assembly, 24 April 2001

105 contributions from 37 members. The official report.

Assembly Business

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

At the sitting of the Assembly on Tuesday 10 April 2001, a number of Members raised concerns about the procedure in respect of the opportunities for Members to reply when they have been referred to in a debate. I previously ruled on this matter on Monday 18 December 2000 — Hansard, Volume 8, No 3, page 79 refers. However, since there still seems to be some lack of clarity in the minds of Members, let me make one or two remarks on this issue.

A Member making a personal statement usually conveys matters of a personal nature to the House. An opportunity to reply may arise when a Member has been referred to in a particular way in a debate. The arrangements for personal statements are described in detail on page 312 of the twenty-second edition of ‘Erskine May’. Personal statements with regard to matters of a personal nature are taken before the start of public business and require the leave of the Speaker. These statements are not subject to intervention or debate, and I require that the text of such a statement be made available to me in advance.

Members may not depart from the agreed text, and no debate or other comments should subsequently ensue. However, when the matter referred to in the statement relates to another Member, he or she will be allowed to give a further brief view on the matter and to say whether the statement is accepted. I expect Members to restrict their comments to the issues raised in the statement, and I will not in any circumstances permit prolonged or repeated verbal exchanges on matters raised in a personal statement.

Members know that other avenues of recourse are available to them in respect of differences between Members. They can be dealt with through the Committee on Standards and Privileges, formally by way of a private Member’s motion or through contact with the relevant Whip’s offices.

In respect of an opportunity to reply to accusations made of them by another Member, Members have sought advice on how they may respond in situations where they are referred to by name in a debate. Page 386 of the twenty-second edition of ‘Erskine May’ advises that Members must conduct business in a spirit of "good temper and moderation".

It also provides that Members should

"guard against all appearance of personality in debate".

While that may come as a substantial disappointment to some Members, the maintenance of good order and parliamentary decorum requires the application of this principle to the proceedings of the Assembly. However, I regret that some Members have on occasions alleged that other Members have been involved in unlawful activity when the Member has not been convicted of the named offence.

If it is requested and seems appropriate, I will, on occasion, permit an opportunity of reply to those of whom specific reference has been made in relation to breaches of the law and where there has been no conviction. However, I will not permit an opportunity of reply in other circumstances, and certainly not when accusations of a purely political nature are made. An opportunity to reply will be made available at a suitable time.

I note from Hansard that a number of points of order were raised regarding unparliamentary language. I have studied those, and while I am clear that none of the comments were any ornament to the debate or to the Official Report, they do not seem to be unparliamentary. However, it is hoped that they do not become habitual language in the Chamber.

Tourism: North/South Ministerial Council

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I have received notice from the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment that he wishes to make a statement on the meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council in its tourism sectoral format held on 30 March 2001 in Letterkenny.

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

Following nomination by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, Dr Seán Farren and I represented the Northern Ireland Administration at the tourism sector meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council. The Irish Government were represented by Dr James McDaid TD, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation. This report has been approved by Dr Farren and is also made on his behalf.

The Council noted a formal progress report on the establishment of the new tourism company and also received an update from Ms Ann Riordan, vice-chairperson of Tourism Ireland Ltd and Mr Felix Mooney, a member of the board. Work is progressing on the further development of Tourism Brand Ireland, marketing programmes for 2002, staffing structures and proposals for the company’s Dublin and Coleraine offices. The Council considered and approved the draft codes of conduct for board members and for the staff of Tourism Ireland Ltd.

The Council also discussed a paper jointly produced by the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment and the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation in conjunction with the Council for Education, Recruitment and Training (CERT), the Irish tourism and hospitality training authority. The paper outlined the support mechanisms and training arrangements for the tourism and hospitality sector in both parts of this island and referred to joint initiatives already undertaken. The paper also identified key areas where joint activities in both jurisdictions would be beneficial. It put forward possible future initiatives for consideration by the appropriate Departments.

Ministers discussed the serious implications of the foot-and-mouth crisis for the tourism industry North and South. They reiterated the determination of both Administrations to combat the crisis in every way possible. Ministers also expressed their determination to ensure that the future of tourism in both parts of this island is positive and that its potential is realised to the full. The council also approved the provision of IR£1,500 per annum to Ms Ni Fheargusa as the board member nominated to assist the chairperson of Foras na Gaeilge.

Séan Neeson (Alliance, East Antrim)

In view of the adverse publicity that Northern Ireland, Ireland and the British Isles are getting due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak, does the Minister have any special plans to promote Northern Ireland, particularly in North America? His counterpart is currently visiting the United States to deal with that issue. What involvement did Northern Ireland have in the recent visit of international tour operators to the United Kingdom?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

As the Member will know, I recently launched a substantial recovery plan that had been prepared by the Tourist Board in consultation with the industry. That will involve a series of activities spread over the next couple of months in North America — both in Canada and the United States. I am currently looking at whether, and when, I should attend. A programme has already been prepared and is under active consideration.

I am aware that Dr McDaid is currently in the United States. We were not consulted by the British Tourist Authority (BTA) about the arrangements. As Northern Ireland was almost clear of the disease at that stage, the authority hoped that we would be able to market ourselves as a completely disease-free area. Therefore, we were not included in that visit. It was also argued that the time required to transport people to Northern Ireland would have been prohibitive in view of the very strict timetable.

David McClarty (UUP, East Londonderry)

It is my belief that the Irish Minister, Dr James McDaid, has gone to the United States of America on a tour promoting Ireland as a whole, and it is my understanding that tourism in Ireland is to be promoted as a whole. Did the Minister approach Dr McDaid to find out whether there was a possibility of a joint promotion between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

That was mooted at a press conference following the Council’s meeting in Letterkenny, and I stated my willingness to participate in such a promotion. However, Dr McDaid has proceeded with his own promotion. Tomorrow I will attend a meeting in Glasgow of all four United Kingdom tourism Ministers. I hope to find out what joint promotion activities we can undertake. I also hope to examine the experiences of other tourism Ministers to see what we can learn from them and what advice we can translate into practical action to help many of our struggling businesses.

Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast South)

I thank the Minister for his statement. I strongly welcome it and the details about the new all-island tourist company. I have a fear, a suspicion, a worry that perhaps there is a risk that we will abandon our responsibilities and leave everything to this new company in the hope that it will solve our problems. Even before foot-and-mouth disease we badly needed to refocus and restructure our responsibilities to make the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) more effective to carry out the responsibilities not contained in the new all-island tourist company.

Can the Minister tell us if there is anything moving on that front? If not, perhaps he could tell us when something will be moving? Those responsibilities are every bit as vital. If we do not have our act together, the all-island tourist company will not function for us as well as it should.

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

I thank the Member for his comment. He used the words "a fear, a suspicion, a worry" that we are leaving everything to the new company. I assure him that that is not the case. This is primarily a marketing company the main function of which is to create a brand and market it internationally, and the creative nature of that work is proceeding. Consultants are already at work. We have not yet seen the draft proposals for 2002, but we must nevertheless remember its main function.

The Tourist Board is currently preparing a three-year plan. Action is therefore underway with regard to refocusing its activities. That is necessary because of the changed circumstances. As the Member will know, the NITB gives grants similar to those given by the IDB and other organisations. The administrative part of that is being transferred to the new Economic Development Agency, but the primary function of the NITB will continue to be promotion, and it will have regulatory functions. The board is part-owner of the company, and its chairperson and chief executive are directors, so there is no way in which we are going to see a situation develop in which the NITB does not have — any more than Bord Fáilte does not have — an overview of tourism as a whole in Northern Ireland. I can assure the Member that we do not intend to leave everything to this new company.

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

While I welcome the Minister’s statement, it was somewhat bland in character. It was similar to those issued after the meetings of many North/South bodies — "We had a meeting, made a couple of decisions, doled out a bit of money, issued a press statement and then went home". Members would like more detail about what exactly happened. For example, have the minutes of these meetings been made available to anyone? Perhaps they could be made available to the appropriate Assembly Committee so that they could be probed in detail, we would know what was going on, and there could be a more standard consultation process.

Does the Minister accept my view that the BTA initiative was extremely unfortunate? While we accept that it might have been difficult to bring all the incoming tour operators to Northern Ireland, at the very least the Minister or a leading NITB official should have been invited to address them, give them an insight into Northern Ireland and tell them that Northern Ireland is still open for tourist business.

On a much more serious matter, the Northern Ireland tourist industry is facing a crisis on a par with that faced by the agriculture industry — particularly in South Down. In any of his recent negotiations, has the Minister made any proposals to the Executive on a consequential loss package to make up for the millions of pounds already lost by the tourist industry?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

There are a number of matters there. The Member will know that a synopsis of the proceedings of these bodies is sent on a regular basis to the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee. That is now done routinely following a request from the Committee. After each meeting I make a statement to the Assembly, and we have questions, as is happening at the moment. All the matters discussed at the meeting are contained in the statement. In the synopsis, items such as the agenda for the meeting are made available to the Committee. Everyone can therefore see the matters that we are discussing, except perhaps personnel issues that it would not be appropriate to detail. Nothing is being discussed which does not appear in the synopsis.

I accept, and agree with, what the Member said about the BTA. I was annoyed that the situation happened the way it did. The explanation which was forthcoming was also unfortunate. Officials from the BTA will be present at the meeting in Glasgow tomorrow of UK Tourism Ministers, and I hope to have the opportunity to pursue the matter directly with those officials.

On the broader point about consequential loss, my Department is currently dealing with 36 cases of businesses that are showing signs of distress. These vary from companies that have sustained losses of 10% to 25% to those that have had their income taken away from them entirely. I am aware that that affects the Member’s constituency and, indeed, the constituencies of other Members.

I must make a point here. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development made it clear yesterday that some people were still defying the advice given by her Department from the outset of this foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in relation to the movement of animals. Unlicensed movements of animals are still taking place. The people involved in these movements — although they may be a tiny minority of the agriculture community — are putting in jeopardy the livelihoods of thousands of people in the Province. People have tried to build up businesses over the years, and these are being put in jeopardy by a handful of people who are behaving in an irresponsible and selfish manner.

This House can send out the message that people must not move animals without a licence. Irresponsible people have brought the disease in and are spreading it in the Province. Such actions are grossly irresponsible, and that is why the Executive are urgently studying what steps to take. I will also be asking tomorrow about what steps are to be taken nationally and what help is to be provided from the contingency reserve. These are matters that we cannot be expected to handle on our own.

Annie Courtney (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Foyle)

I too welcome the Minister’s statement and the fact that attention is being given to the impact of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak on the tourism industry, particularly rural tourism.

The Republic is currently having a major drive in the USA and is using the services of high-profile performers such as U2 to get the message across that the Republic is a place to visit. Has the Minister any plans to use a similar strategy for Northern Ireland? In his statement the Minister said that key areas had been identified where joint activities in both jurisdictions would be beneficial. Can he outline some of the initiatives that could be taken?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

The latter point relates to actions that my Colleague Dr Seán Farren could be taking in his Department with regard to training and identifying common areas. As the Member will be aware, there has been co-operation for some considerable time, and a representative of CERT — the Irish Government’s hospitality training body — was present at the meeting alongside representatives from Dr Farren’s Department. They are looking at proposals which I hope will be brought to the next meeting. I will, of course, report to the House on the detail.

I am very conscious of the need to get the message across, and we are looking at what we can do in overseas markets. I made it clear that I was prepared to do joint work with other UK Ministers or with Dr McDaid, but it takes two to tango, and it is up to them to make up their own minds.

As far as we are concerned, we have launched our own campaign in all the European and North American markets where the bulk of our overseas visitors come from. However, as the Member understands, we are dealing with a very deep-seated misconception, particularly on the part of people from North America. They start from the assumption that, in some cases, your hands and feet fall off as a result of the disease. That is what some people truly believe. We have to get more exposure to make people realise the facts. Last year there were outbreaks of anthrax in the United States, and that is a far more serious disease than foot-and-mouth, by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, Americans still expect us to visit North America.

We have an extremely difficult task, one that will require consistent effort over the next few months to save next year’s business at least.

Wilson Clyde (DUP, South Antrim)

Does the Minister have any plans to give financial aid to hotels and to bed-and-breakfast establishments to help them over this crisis? Was this discussed at the meeting on 30 March?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

The subject of compensation for businesses in Northern Ireland would not have been discussed at the meeting in March. The matter is being examined by a special working party set up by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister. They have asked each of the relevant Departments for input on how its sector is being affected. My Department has responded. I have indicated to the House that we are currently dealing with 36 cases of people in difficulty. As Members know, some interim steps have been taken with regard to short-term assistance for companies to alleviate some of the problems — for example, the Inland Revenue and the Customs and Excise have helplines and are offering deferments regarding PAYE and VAT. The Rate Collection Agency has a helpline and is offering deferment. We accept that these measures merely put off having to pay a bill, but in the short term that can be very significant.

There is also a more long-term benefit in the small firms loan guarantee scheme. This is a UK-wide scheme, which has now been amended to include the hospitality sector. I have written to the banks; I have pointed out that this loan guarantee scheme is available, and I have asked them to exercise sensitivity and discretion in their dealings with people from this sector. We await the report form the working party to see what is available. I repeat that I will also be waiting to see what will be done nationally. The Prime Minister and the Government have made it clear that they have got to help businesses and industries to get back on their feet. However, so far, as the saying goes, the Chancellor’s two arms are "the one length".

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

I thank the Minister for his endeavours to deal with the crisis in the tourist industry. Will he confirm that the next meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council will be held in Coleraine? As the new tourism company is to be based in that town, does he agree that this will be a highly significant occasion, given the importance of the tourism company to the Causeway coast? Finally, does he agree that the new tourism company has a critical role to play, given the present crisis in the tourist industry caused by foot-and-mouth disease and the important lessons to be learned from that sad experience?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

The next tourism meeting of the NSMC will be held in Northern Ireland. The precise location has not been determined, but the Member has put an idea into my head. The Coleraine office is one of the matters that we regularly refer to, in both correspondence and discussions between us. I am looking forward to its establishment. It will have a very significant role to play.

The Moyle and Coleraine areas have suffered major blows to tourism in the last few weeks, particularly with the cancellation of the North West 200. We are anxiously waiting for an announcement on the suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease in Ballintoy, and we hope for good news there. However, there has been a major hit to one of our most important tourism areas. There is no disguising that.

The primary function of the tourism company is to increase the market of international visitors to both jurisdictions. As the Member is aware, more than 70% of our international visitors come to Northern Ireland via the Republic. We must increase that number, however, and get more people who visit the Republic to come to Northern Ireland. Indeed, parts of the Republic are very anxious to get people to visit their areas — Donegal and other places feel even more isolated than Northern Ireland.

This is not simply a Northern Irish issue — it is a geographical issue. To get more people who visit areas such as Cork, Kerry and Dublin to come up north is a major exercise, the success of which the company will be judged upon. We will at least be able to measure what it achieves, even though the particular circumstances of this year will make it extremely difficult to use that as a benchmark.

William Hay (DUP, Foyle)

There is a perception that the whole emphasis of the foot-and-mouth epidemic seems to be on the farming industry and on the financial package available for farmers. There is nothing at all wrong with that. The Minister has commented on the tourism industry, but, given the serious nature of the issue, can he tell the House when decisions will be made to try to help the tourism industry across Northern Ireland?

There is a feeling abroad in Northern Ireland that the longer the disease goes on and the longer it takes for decisions to be made on how aid goes to the tourism industry, the worse the problem will become. The quicker those decisions are made, the better. Does the Minister have a timescale for that?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

We all sympathise with those in the agriculture community, some of whom have seen a life’s work literally go up in smoke before them. There is no way that anyone cannot be deeply affected by that.

There is also a misconception that a farmer who loses his or her animals is compensated for the loss of the capital asset — the animals. They are not compensated for a future loss of income, nor are they compensated for the years, and indeed generations, that it would take to rebuild a herd, particularly a pedigree herd. Farmers are not getting a bonanza from this — their livelihoods have stopped. They cannot put animals back on their land for months, and their income is, of course, nil.

I have previously made it clear that I regard people in the tourism sector as often being the forgotten victims of this crisis. The income of people who own guesthouses, for instance a husband and wife, has not just dropped — in some cases it has stopped, but the costs continue. I cannot emphasise enough that we are very conscious of that. That is why I expressed anger at the irresponsible actions of a very tiny minority who are giving the agriculture sector a bad name that it does not deserve.

In so far as timescale is concerned the matter is critical. I cannot be precise, but I expect that it will be possible to identify what we can do in the next two weeks. However, that is subject to what happens nationally, and we must understand that we cannot assume that it is appropriate for us to take the entire burden here. The contingency reserve is there to help in a national emergency — this is a national emergency. I am looking to the Chancellor to divvy up the contingency reserve and help, bearing in mind that foot-and-mouth disease was imported to the Province; it did not start here.

Oliver Gibson (DUP, West Tyrone)

I congratulate the Minister on his forthright condemnation of those who imported the foot-and- mouth plague. Mavericks spread it, and it is threatening the community. We have been trying to create farm diversification in west Tyrone for six years. We have encouraged many farm businesses that were finding it difficult to survive to try to diversify. Many of those businesses have been singularly hit, not only by the agriculture crisis, but also by their dependence on a diversification that was also agriculturally related or dependent. The situation is beginning to have a serious impact in west Tyrone. Sperrins Tourism Ltd launched the "kick-start" initiative on a Thursday, and on the Friday it was struck in the teeth by the outbreak at Ardboe.

I appeal to the Minister to consider this matter nationally and, as soon as he can, to give us a timetable. Survival in west Tyrone is critical for our agriculture community and for those who depend on it.

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

The Member is right that, for some time now, we have been encouraging people in rural areas to add another string to their bow. The reason for that is that agriculture has been suffering for several years for a wide variety of reasons that are structural and will not go away. Even if we get over the foot-and-mouth crisis — when we get over the crisis — those problems will remain.

We have encouraged and grant-aided people. We have put public funds into physical diversification, whether in the form of conversions, the erection of chalets, or whatever. Marketing assistance is offered, and, indeed, computer bookings are also available. There is no doubt that in encouraging people to move from an industry that was under enormous pressure, they have been encouraged to move into another industry that is also under enormous pressure. The Member is perfectly right to draw attention to the matter.

The consequential effects of foot-and-mouth disease are far reaching. It is almost impossible to draw a clean line around the sectors that are affected; they go far and wide. A comment by Mr Bell of the Institute of Directors in the business section of the ‘News Letter’ today draws attention to these issues. I sympathise with the Member.

I notice that some people in the north-west are considering proposals to run a festival as opposed to the North West 200. If those people have a proposal and draw it to the Tourist Board’s attention, it will be looked at as sympathetically as possible. It may be that that example could be followed in other areas. I am sure that Sperrins Tourism Ltd will not be behind the door in coming forward with ideas.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

The Minister has rightly recognised the effects of the foot-and-mouth disease on the tourist industry. It has been confirmed in today’s papers that the Balmoral Show will be cancelled this year, resulting in the loss of some £6 million of income and revenue to the area. What steps will be taken to compensate people who have lost bed spaces as a result of the cancellation of the show? What study will be done into the impact of this on the capitalist structures —

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. The Minister has been fairly generous in his preparedness to respond to matters broadly within his remit, even though they did not arise from the North/South Ministerial Council statement. The question that the Member is asking falls somewhat outside, not only the issues covered in the statement, but issues covered by the Assembly. Perhaps the Member does not recognise that, as he was not in the House to hear the statement. If that is the case, it would be wrong to press further on the Minister’s generosity by asking him to respond to a question that deals with a matter well outside his area of responsibility.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

I read the Minister’s statement prior to entering the Chamber, so I am aware of its contents.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Then the Member has very little excuse.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

I will ask two other questions.

The first relates to consequential loss. Can the Minister look at how that is going to affect the country’s sports and leisure activities in relation to the North/South body and the relationship that the Tourist Board has with local councils? In my own area, the local council has been very active in promoting tourism across Northern Ireland and further afield in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe. What relationship does the Tourist Board have with local councils in trying to help promote those areas specifically, and others further afield?

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

I do not know quite where to begin. The Member for Strangford is always creative in these matters.

We all deeply regret yesterday’s announcement. The Balmoral Show is one of the highlights of Northern Ireland’s year, not only for the tourism and agriculture sector, but beyond that, because it attracts people who otherwise would have no connection with agriculture whatsoever. It is a huge blow.

We do not want to see people lose out as a result of this crisis. However, we would be naïve in the extreme to believe that, even if there were no financial constraints upon us, everybody is going to come out of this as if nothing has happened. That is just not the case, and the Member knows that. Certainly, we are looking at the financial and economic impact of this crisis on all sectors. Within a week or two we should have a report, and the Executive will be able to make recommendations at that stage.

Regional tourism organisations are supported by the Tourist Board and will continue to be supported by the Tourist Board. They will have a role to play in the recovery programme, as it will be necessary for those organisations to do some of their own marketing work. The Tourist Board will look at any proposals that may be advanced by those organisations. Of course, not every local authority is in a regional tourism organisation, but where there are proposals and suggestions from the local authorities, they should be brought to the Tourist Board as quickly as possible, while we are considering this.

The whole issue comes down to cash. At the moment, the Tourist Board is spending money that, strictly speaking, it does not have. I have made it clear to the board that it is to take whatever steps it feels are necessary and appropriate. It will be my task in the months ahead to find the resources for that. However, local authorities have a contribution to make, and I have little doubt that those directly affected will be generous in their resource allocations.

Private Streets (Construction) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

I beg to move

That the Private Streets (Construction) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001 be approved.

The Regulations amend the Private Streets (Construction) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1994, which set out the standards and detailed requirements for the construction of private streets in new housing developments. The 1994 Regulations provided for the deposit and approval of plans and for the giving of notice for the commencement and completion of various stages of work. They also provided for the inspection of work, carrying out of investigations and tests and the taking of samples to ensure that work was in conformity with the regulations.

The proposed changes are necessary to implement the provisions of the primary legislation — the Private Streets (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 — which placed responsibility for the provision of street lighting in new developments on the developers. The effect of the proposed amendments to the Regulations will be to introduce changes in two distinct areas. First, regulation 15(a) and schedule 8 prescribe standards for the provision of street lighting in private streets. Secondly, they amend regulation 20 of the 1994 Regulations to extend the specified expenses to include the cost of inspection of street works during construction and to provide for the bearing of such costs by developers.

Consequential amendments relating to the deposit and approval of plans — regulation 3(8) — the notice of commencement of stages of work — regulation 3(9) — and detailed requirements for goods and materials to be used in the construction of streets — regulation 3(13) — have been made. In addition, references in the 1994 Regulations to various technical publications have been updated.

The proposed Regulations were circulated for comment to the Construction Employers’ Federation, Northern Ireland Electricity, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and other public bodies. The comments received by my Department during the consultation period have been taken into account in the Regulations now before the Assembly.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

I welcome the Minister’s statement. Because of the legislation, developers will not only have to comply with prescribed standards, but they will have to meet the cost of inspections. That is not an unfair burden. It is important that we note that, and I welcome that move. It is also fair to say that, following widespread public consultation, there was a general welcome for the measures. The Minister has made a progressive step that the public will welcome.

I shall not detain the House unduly on such straightforward Regulations, but I ask the Minister to ensure that the Department for Regional Development puts in place stringent inspection standards for street lighting before it adopts a road as a public road. I am sure that my fellow members of the Regional Development Committee will agree. It is all very well for the Minister to introduce the Regulations and put the burden on developers, but developers will take short cuts and will not comply properly with the standards that have been laid down by the House.

The anticipated saving of £1·5 million is to be welcomed. I ask the Minister to ensure that the money that is saved as a result of the implementation of these regulations and the carrying of the burden by the developers will be used for further road development by the Department. It would be the best use of these savings if the money were ploughed back into the road network, which is sorely in need of additional funding, as the Minister and the House will recognise. Small amount though it may be, £1·5 million would be very welcome.

I also have a concern, which I am sure is reflected by other members of the Committee, that developers may seek to pass on the additional costs to house purchasers. I ask the Minister to assure the House that these costs will not be added on to house prices and that developers will bear them. It would be unfair if house buyers were to be further burdened with additional costs that rightly should be borne by the developers.

The Committee in its consideration of these Regulations was supportive, and I reiterate my welcome, as Chairperson, and that of the Committee for them.

Alan McFarland (UUP, North Down)

I too welcome the Regulations and support the Chairperson’s remarks. Will the Minister clarify the timing factor? In many developments we see houses completed but the infrastructure, the roads and the lighting have been left in an extremely rough state. How long will a developer be allowed to leave an estate like that before he is obliged to comply with the Regulations? This often happens where a developer has built one group of houses and is hoping to move on to a second group. He will try to leave the infrastructure unfinished until he has built his second batch. We need to have a clear idea of how long a builder will be allowed before he must fulfil his obligations under these Regulations. I welcome them again.

William Hay (DUP, Foyle)

I too very much welcome the Minister’s statement this morning. The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee asked a very important question. We have all seen, especially as council representatives, that it can take many years for roads to be adopted. It has taken over 20 years for some roads in my constituency to be adopted.

We need to be very clear on this, because developers can take quite a while to finish anything. My fear is that they might also throw street lighting into that. We need clear assurances from the Minister that contractors will not be able to treat street lighting in the same way as they treat the finishing of roads. Is there a developer who is creating problems with the finishing of street lighting? What penalty points will be given to him? With regard to roads and adopted roads, a bond exists at the moment, but that bond can be taken away if the Department feels that it must finish a road itself. Will this also apply to street lighting?

Joe Byrne (Social Democratic and Labour Party, West Tyrone)

I welcome the proposals as the Regulations in Northern Ireland are now in line with other regions of the UK.

It is important that the £1·5 million savings be retained within the Department. It could be used for improvement to roads in either small capital works programmes, or in road maintenance schemes. The developer is being asked to incur only a marginal extra cost to a development, and that should not cause any undue extra financial burden.

Mr Hay made reference to many unadopted roads. There are roads throughout Northern Ireland — particularly in urban areas — that have never been adopted, causing pain to many householders. Will the Minister look at this issue soon?

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

Is the Minister aware that one of the losses incurred by this decision is that his Department for Regional Development has decided to move the design consultancy street lighting service from Downpatrick to Lisburn? That means the loss of three jobs in Downpatrick, and those staff will be moved to Lisburn. Does the Minister accept that I have made numerous representations to his Department to move the new unit to Downpatrick, thus creating 12 new jobs? Will he agree to discuss this issue with me? It is a matter of great concern that we are losing jobs from south Down to the greater Belfast area.

Danny O'Connor (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Antrim)

I welcome the announcement, and, on a constituency note, I would like to see the £1·5 million being diverted to East Antrim.

The onus is now going to be placed on the developer. Mr McFarland said that developers build small clusters of houses as phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3, and when they get to phase 5 or 6, the roads in phase 1 are still not adopted. My concern is that the same thing will happen with street lighting. It will be left to the end, and the limited company will suddenly go out of business — having made its profit from the houses — without having had the financial implications of having to provide street lighting and other facilities.

Once a certain number of houses have been built, could the street lighting be provided for those houses prior to starting the next phase? If a developer were to go under, the Department would not be left with the financial responsibility for a developer who has already made quite a hefty profit.

Mr Hay mentioned that a large number of roads have remained unadopted for 20 years. That seems to happen throughout Northern Ireland. Is there any way that the Department can put the ball firmly in the developer’s court so that if one developer defaults in his obligations, he cannot create a new company and repeat the process? Cowboy builders have set up companies and sub-companies in the past without any overall responsibility.

They all seem to have the same structure — all the profits go back to the same person, but the company is actually split into four or five different parts for convenience.

I thank the Minister for his initiative.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I am going to take advantage of this occasion to ask the Minister a question posed to me yesterday by a constituent living in Robinson Road in Bangor. The census enumerator noticed that she did not have street lights, and my constituent asked me to ask the Minister what she should do about that. She lives in a new development, and in the context of these Regulations, I would like to know to whom my constituent can turn to get street lighting put in. With the onus being on the developer under these new Regulations, if there are not enough street lights, will constituents be able to go to the developer and ask for street lights to be put in? Also, who will be responsible for the upkeep of this lighting? Obviously, the more serious question is the huge importance of street lighting for safety in these areas, especially for women. Finally, what about trees? Will there be any onus on developers to plant trees as well?

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is becoming apparent that Members believe this to be a statement on which they can ask questions. It is, in fact, legislation, and speeches can be made. I have only just discovered this after asking my question. I could have gone on for half an hour about the plight of the street lighting section in Downpatrick, but unfortunately it is too late.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

On this occasion this is a point of order. It is somewhat surprising that the Member has not read the Order Paper, which makes it clear that this is a motion for the passage of Regulations — that is secondary legislation, as he has said. It is not a statement by the Minister; it is a motion for the passage of secondary legislation. The Member is correct that speeches are appropriate. Whether the Chair would have been content for him to go on for half an hour is another matter, but this does give Members an opportunity to speak. However, I should point out that it is the passage of a piece of legislation and not an opportunity for Members to ask constituency questions of Ministers.

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

Who, me?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

The Member points to himself. It is not an opportunity for Members to ask constituency questions, any more than it would be in order for a Member to put down an amendment of a constituency question on the passage of a piece of primary legislation. Of course, Members may wish to refer to their constituency experiences in supporting a piece of legislation, but that is not entirely the same thing.

Oliver Gibson (DUP, West Tyrone)

I welcome this legislation. I have three areas of major concern. First, will the Minister tell us when this legislation is going to kick in? In other words, precisely when will this legislation start?

My second point is in relation to the bond, which has already been mentioned by Cllr Hay. In Omagh we have a no-man’s-land —

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. I really wonder how much Members have prepared themselves for this debate. One Member has just said that he did not realise that it was a motion rather than a statement. A second has now raised the profoundly important question — he says — of when this will come into effect. I point the Member to the first paragraph of the Regulations, where it says that they shall come into operation on 1 May 2001. It is not in order for Members to waste the time of the Minister or the House by asking questions on things that they have not looked up, which are not only relevant, but are, indeed, the matters on which the House will be voting.

Oliver Gibson (DUP, West Tyrone)

I stand corrected, Mr Speaker.

My last question is the most important of all. Will this not add to the cost of houses? After all, who pays for all of this? I wish to be assured by the Minister that for those people who wish to purchase property, there will not be an added bill that prohibits them from doing so.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

I will certainly not be asking any questions about the Balmoral Show or anything else. I will be specific to the issue. I am glad that the street lighting legislation will bring us into line with the UK mainland, and I welcome the Minister’s statement. However, at the same time it is important that the responsibility falls upon the shoulders of the developers. We all hope to see that, and this legislation will enable that to happen.

I have a couple of questions, and they are not to do with my constituency; they are specific to the legislation. Is there a deadline by which a developer must provide street lights, and who will ensure that this is adhered to and that people have sufficient street lighting?

In relation to the development itself, again it comes down to monitoring the street lighting that is installed. Who will ensure that a developer has the expertise to install street lighting to meet the standards of the Department, and who will ensure that it is brought up to the standard that will enable the Department to adopt and look after it?

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

There were a number of issues, and, Mr Speaker, I am glad that you dealt with some of them yourself. I will try to respond to Members in very generic terms.

A number of Members raised the issue of the savings that will result from the legislation. There will be a saving of £1·5 million, and I assure Members that I will look at how that can be utilised and what benefit it can bring. Obviously, there are people who have campaigned on rural street lighting and other issues, and those issues will have to be looked at in the light of this saving.

Mr Wells raised the design unit. I responded previously, and I will respond again on a separate occasion. On the commencement of the onus being on the developer, all those matters will be raised in the Roads Service, and it will ensure that the bond that any developer takes out to construct private streets includes an element which has street lighting as an essential part of it. If there is any failure on the part of a developer, that section of the bond can be used to ensure that the work continues.

We will also use best practice from the rest of the UK and other parts of Europe to ensure that the best parts of legislation elsewhere are contained in our legislation and that the pitfalls that have been experienced elsewhere are avoided in Northern Ireland.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That the Private Streets (Construction) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001 be approved.

Local Management of Schools (LMS) Common Funding Formula

Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

I beg to move

That this Assembly notes the publication of the consultative document and the intention to introduce a common formula for funding schools.

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the motion before the House today.

School funding is a very important matter. Formula funding to schools in the current financial year will total almost £750,000 million, which will be used to deliver education to 340,000 pupils, employ 23,000 teachers and 20,000 other staff in schools, including administrative staff, caretakers, classroom assistants and technicians, purchase books and equipment and heat and maintain 1,200 schools.

The level of funding and the way in which it is spent have a direct influence on the quality of education that schools can provide. It affects the number of teachers that can be employed, the level of support staff, the learning materials available and the quality of the school environment. Finance is on the agenda of almost every meeting I have with school representatives, and it forms a large part of the correspondence received by my Department. It may not generate as much interest among the public as the review of post-primary education, but rest assured that it does command the attention of schools.

The main concern is about lack of funding. I share that concern. Our primary and post-primary schools are underfunded compared to similar schools in England, Scotland and Wales, and I have consistently argued the case in the Executive and the Assembly for additional funding. That has met with some success, as the record shows. During the last year I obtained additional funds to assist schools with energy costs, reading schemes and maintenance. I also secured an additional £20·4 million for direct allocation to school budgets. Those extra resources will make a difference to the quality of education that our schools can provide. However, our children deserve better, and I will continue to press for further resources to ensure that schools are properly funded to meet pupils’ needs.

The other concern regularly raised by schools is that the distribution of funding is unfair. Some school representatives feel that if their school were in a different area or sector, it would receive more money. There are seven local management of schools (LMS) formulae used to allocate funds; one administered by each of the five boards and two run by the Department in respect of the grant-maintained integrated schools and voluntary grammar schools. Each of them is different, so it is hardly surprising that schools and others find the system of funding complex, confusing, inconsistent and unfair. I agree with that view.

The present system has become inequitable. With just over 1,200 schools to fund, I cannot see why seven different LMS formulae for the allocation of resources are required. Therefore, I am committed to the development of a single common funding formula. The objective is relatively simple — to ensure that schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of the area or sector in which they are located.

However, the realisation of that objective is more complex because of the differences across boards in funding levels and in the make-up of funding formulae. Although useful progress has been made over the last few years in harmonising the current LMS formulae in preparation for the introduction of a common formula, significant differences still remain. Those differences must be tackled if schools are to be funded fairly. Therefore, the publication of the Department of Education’s consultation document represents a major milestone in the achievement of equitable funding for all schools.

The document proposes some significant changes. The appropriate balance of resources between the primary and secondary sectors is a difficult issue, but one which must be addressed. Representatives of the primary sector have presented a robust case that they should have a larger share of the available resources. They have pointed to the fact that under current formulae a primary school pupil here generates about 65% of the amount generated by a post-primary pupil. That differential is much wider than in England and Wales, where an investigation by the House of Commons Education Committee concluded that primary schools should get a larger share of resources.

While there are different needs in the two sectors — particularly in the scope of the curriculum and its mode of delivery — the current differential is too wide. Intervention and additional support in the early years of primary education can reduce or prevent the development of many learning difficulties experienced by children at post-primary level, where remedial measures are not only more costly but also less effective. Investment in the early years of education, therefore, is a sound one.

Despite a reduction in the funding differential between primary and post-primary schools in recent years, an increasing number of primary schools are encountering difficulty in containing expenditure within budget. That is also reflected in rising primary pupil/teacher ratios. Taking those factors into account, I am satisfied that there is a case for further narrowing the resource gaps. I propose to increase primary sector funding by around 4%, or approximately £12 million, on the basis of the 2000-01 budgets.

This would mean that a primary school pupil would attract 67% of the funding attracted by a post-primary pupil, compared to 65% at present. This will help considerably to ease the pressures in the primary sector.

Targeting social need (TSN) is one of the Executive’s key priorities, and it is a particular priority for me as Minister of Education. We must tackle underachievement among pupils from all backgrounds, whether they are regarded as socially disadvantaged or not, and we must help schools to deal with the problems of children from disadvantaged circumstances. The document proposes the use of educational indicators alongside entitlement to free school meals in the allocation of TSN funding to address these aspects of social need.

I also propose to increase the funding allocated under TSN from 5% to 5·5% of the total schools’ recurrent funding. This represents a 10% increase in TSN funding in LMS. On the basis of the 2000-01 budget it would have the effect of increasing expenditure in TSN from £40 million to £44 million. This additional investment of £4 million underscores my commitment to tackling social need and disadvantage in education.

LMS is only one of a number of means by which the Department of Education seeks to fulfil its TSN role. The substantial range of other TSN-related education activities will continue. These include the school support programme, the group 1 schools initiative, the targeting of pre-school education, the code of practice in special needs and initiatives to help marginalised groups such as travellers and those educated under the EOTAS (education otherwise than at school) programme.

One factor at the heart of the current disparities in funding levels is the variation in the levels of funding delegated by education and library boards to schools. One board delegates 74%, whereas another delegates 67%. I accept that these variations reflect in part the different characteristics of board areas. For example, more rural boards will have higher transport costs, and more disadvantaged boards will have more free school meals. However, they also reflect differences in the level of service provided by boards and the manner in which they are delivered.

I am determined to bring levels of funding delegation to schools across boards on to a more consistent and higher level, and in doing so, to increase the size of school budgets. The Department has already urged boards to take positive action this year to increase allocations to schools. In introducing a common funding formula I will seek to realign existing budgets and will work to increase funding delegated to schools by up to £15 million or 2%. This is the high aggregated schools budget (ASB) model presented in the document. Priority must be given to the classroom, and my officials will work closely with boards between now and the end of the year to determine how this can best be achieved.

I am anxious to ensure that the debate on the common formula is founded on educational principles and arguments on what is best for pupils rather than whether an individual school is a winner or a loser. However, schools and other education bodies will, of course, want to know what effect the proposals will have on their particular circumstances. To assist these considerations, the document contains extensive tables and graphs setting out the potential impact of a common formula on school phases, sectors and management types. It also contains funding outcomes for a wide range of hypothetical schools of different types chosen to reflect variations across the key characteristics which affect the level of funding, that is, enrolment, premises and social disadvantage. These funding outcomes give as clear an indication as possible of the likely impact of the formula. However, it must be recognised that they rely on assumption and will be affected by any changes to the key factors between 2000-01, the year on which the data is based, and 2002-03, when commonality will be implemented.

Some people may have wanted the document to spell out the implications for individual schools. However, for the reasons just mentioned, such spurious precision would run the real risk of misleading schools. I am satisfied that the funding outcomes presented give all schools and sectors a good idea of how they are likely to be affected by commonality.

This is not to seek in any way to minimise the importance to schools of a change in their level of funding. In an exercise of this kind it is inevitable that there will be winners and losers, and the implementation of the new funding formula will need to be managed very carefully. The document proposes transitional protection arrangements to limit the annual change in individual school budgets and to assist an orderly and smooth adjustment to new levels of resourcing over a three-year period.

The consultation period will extend to 29 June, and the common formula will be implemented in April 2002. I will wish to make final decisions on the formula in September, following consultation with the Education Committee and discussions with the Executive Committee. This timescale is required to provide sufficient time for the new operational arrangements, including any new IT systems, to be developed and tested, so that schools can be provided with their budget outcomes early in the new year.

The proposals in the consultation document have been developed through extensive — albeit informal — discussion and debate with our key partners such as officials from education and library boards and CCMS, and representatives of the Governing Bodies Association and the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education. I thank everyone who has contributed to this process, and I acknowledge in particular the contribution made by the various board officers and school staff members who sat on working groups in the early stages. Their input has been very helpful in framing the current proposals. I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Education Committee for its constructive approach in the discussion of these proposals. The Committee made a number of helpful suggestions which I have been able to reflect in the document. This is yet another example of the very constructive and positive relationship between the Committee and my Department, and I am most anxious that it should continue.

I cannot emphasise enough that this is a genuine consultation exercise. No decisions have yet been made, and I encourage everyone who has an interest to participate fully in the wider debate so that all views and suggestions can be carefully considered before the new formula is finalised. It is important that schools fully understand and respond to the proposals. My Department, together with the boards, has arranged two briefing conferences for all schools in each board area. Invitations have been issued to the principal and to the chairman of the board of governors of each school. The conferences are designed to give officials an opportunity to explain the proposals and to clarify any issues raised by school representatives. The first conference was held today, and others will be held between now and next Tuesday.

I want to emphasise again the importance of this issue. The introduction of a common funding formula forms a key part of my Department’s contribution to the Programme for Government. It is a major lever in relation to the quality of education delivered by each of our schools, and it is therefore vital that we get it right. The current system cannot continue. It is manifestly wrong that the level of funding received by a school and the quality of education it can provide for its pupils can depend on the area or sector in which it is located. Our objective is to resolve this inequity through the introduction of a fairer system of funding, common across all areas and school sectors. I believe that this is good news for schools and will be widely welcomed. I trust that Members will also support the concept and principles of a common funding formula.

I look forward to hearing Members’ views during the debate, and I assure them that these will be considered very carefully over the coming months before any final decisions are taken.

Danny Kennedy (UUP, Newry and Armagh)

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate on this vital issue. I will address the Assembly as Chairman of the Education Committee and then in my role as Ulster Unionist Assembly spokesperson.

The Education Committee welcomes the publication of the consultation document. The issue of how schools are funded has generated the greatest number of requests for meetings with the Education Committee, and representatives from all sectors and all sizes of schools have expressed their concerns on this matter. As the Minister has indicated, there are a large number of formulae used to fund schools under the current LMS system.

As a result of this complex method, schools with the same characteristics receive entirely different allocations based on their location or sector. That needs to be addressed. The situation is neither satisfactory nor equitable. The Committee welcomes the key objective of ensuring that schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of which sector or area they are in.

The proposals comprise a number of welcome initiatives. The Education Committee strongly believes that investment in early intervention is an investment in the future and that it must be a priority. Funding for the early stages of the education process can result in long-term savings through a reduction in or prevention of learning difficulties and low achievement, which often lead to children becoming disaffected with education, subsequent problems with attendance and other difficulties. The proposed increase in primary-sector funding is, therefore, very appropriate.

I also welcome the intention to increase the proportion of the budget to be delegated to classrooms to help provide our young people with the best possible education. I support the proposal to revise the balance of funding based on the factors of social deprivation and special educational need. There should be a fifty-fifty funding distribution, which would provide greater support for tackling low educational achievement. All pupils who perform below the expected level need additional support, regardless of their social background.

The cost of teachers’ salaries is the most significant element of a school budget, and it often accounts for 80% of the total expenditure. I welcome the fact that this document seeks views on whether the formula should reflect actual teacher costs or whether teachers’ salaries should be excluded. The Ulster Unionist Party and myself favour a system that will take account of actual teacher costs rather than average teacher costs, as under the current system. This would be a fairer system and, in my view, a more realistic one. I have some concern that, in general, LMS funding has not encouraged long-term planning by schools and has led to a short-term management style. There is evidence that the current arrangements have contributed to the dramatic fall in numbers of newly qualified teachers who gain permanent contracts. I hope that this consultation exercise will highlight such issues and the implications of LMS funding generally.

The Education Committee encourages as many schools, education bodies and other interested organisations and individuals as possible to participate in the consultation exercise and to contribute their views to inform Members in their consideration of this most important issue.

We have expressed concern to the Minister about the length of the consultation period. Given the detailed and complicated nature of the issues, and the fact that there will be winners and losers if these proposals are implemented, it is most important that an adequate consultation period be provided. The Committee, noting the consultation document was due to be launched early in the new year, has proposed that the consultation period should be extended until the end of June to allow schools to submit their views. The Minister accepted this point of view. However, the publication of the document did not take place until April, and that period has now been considerably reduced.

I call on the Minister to address this matter immediately. In developing these proposals, we will need to take account of the review of post-primary education, the curriculum review and other consultative issues that prevail in the education sector.

12.00

As the Ulster Unionist Party spokesperson on education in the Assembly, and on a personal note, I have to express serious concerns about the proposal in this consultative document to introduce a provision relating to Irish- medium units. The proposal is to provide Irish-medium primary schools in units with an extra £100 per pupil and Irish-medium post-primary schools with an additional £25 per pupil. I do not agree that pupils in specific sectors, such as Irish-medium schools, should receive more funding than pupils in other sectors. The proposal is unfair to the majority of pupils. The current arrangements under which Irish-medium schools are funded on exactly the same basis as other schools are appropriate and should be continued. I therefore serve notice to the Minister that the Ulster Unionist Party will oppose this clause if it is included in any subsequent legislation. The clause is inequitable, and I stress that this is an education issue, not a political one. It is important that this debate be conducted on the basis of educational need and that other issues should not cloud this need or be allowed to interfere.

This consultative document is important. It comes in a long line of other important documents that have been mentioned, including the post-primary curriculum review. Many teachers, and others in the field of education, are weary of the weight of advice that is being sought from them from on high. That is another argument in favour of the Minister’s considering an extension of the period involved. The Ulster Unionist Party will be making a formal request for an extension to this period. The issue is very important — perhaps the most important issue — to primary school principals, boards of governors, secondary schools and all schools, regardless of the sector they are in. It is a major concern to anyone with an interest in education.

It is important that we address the issue quickly; we must also address it properly, and we must move to a situation where sensible legislation can be introduced, which can be supported by those at the coalface of education, as well as Assembly party members. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will hear my plea for additional time to be given to this consultative body. I encourage schools, individuals and other interested parties to make submissions to it.

Schools and boards of governors will study the proposals to see how their school will fare under the new arrangements. That is an understandable reaction and one that will bear heavily on the representations that they will make. The current system is unfair, and we want to move to a more equitable one. The assessment of actual teacher costs, rather than average teacher costs, is one way of ensuring that all schools can feel that they are being fairly treated. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on the extension of the time period and on my views about the Irish-medium factor.

Tommy Gallagher (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

The motion offers us a useful opportunity to have some discussion from the outset of the consultation period. Everyone must agree that the document is complex and detailed. If it is implemented, almost all schools will experience changes in the way that their budgets are allocated. Changes will be favourable for some, and while others will see no significant gain, some will have their school budgets reduced.

The proposed changes are set against a backdrop of radical curriculum changes and the resultant pressures on all schools over the last decade. Changes must also take account of current population trends, which see school enrolments, at both primary and secondary level, falling. Many schools are already experiencing severe financial pressures.

The founding principles of the document are very sound. We hope to achieve a system that will be easy to operate and understand, will be transparent and will reinforce wider education policy. The other changes, which I believe will be welcomed, include basing school budgets on the preceding year’s census. That is a sensible suggestion that most schools will welcome. The extension of teacher salary protection will particularly facilitate smaller schools.

Funding will be increased for children from the travelling community and for those children for whom English is an additional language. Some tests on targeting social need (TSN) have been carried out. Social need factors are clearly defined in the document and are based on the twin criteria of social deprivation and special educational needs. TSN funding will be divided fairly on a fifty-fifty basis.

However, that will all happen without any extra money being available. We are commencing a new exercise by moving money around schools in a different way. As the Minister said, how that is managed will be a key factor. If all goes well we will have an efficient system that will give the Department of Education increased bargaining power with the Executive. If, on the other hand, it does not go well, that will present different problems.

When the Minister launched the document he said that the proposal would ensure that similar schools would be treated in a similar way. While nobody would disagree with that, careful consideration must still be given.

A number of questions immediately spring to mind. How are similar schools to be defined? For example, a 300-pupil school in one of the County Fermanagh sectors may look similar to a 300-pupil school in the same sector in Ballymena, yet they may not have much in common. One is urban while the other is rural. One relies heavily on the school transport service, whereas the other does not depend on it as much. One relies heavily on an adequate school meals service, whereas it may not be as important for the other because of its location.

The terminology must be clarified. The definition of a "similar" school needs to be looked at in greater depth. Before anything is changed we need clear information on how the Department proposes to arrive at the definition of "similar" when using the phrase "schools with similar characteristics". Every school, as we know, must be looked at from its social context, its position in the community and what access it has to services such as leisure facilities. The surrounding infrastructure and how that assists or has an adverse effect on school transport must be taken into account. All these elements must be considered before we can identify schools with "similar" characteristics.

Another aspect to consider is the shifts and changes that there will be in the school system and the education and library boards. The boards receive an allocation; they hold some of the money centrally for transport, support services and school meals, but they send the greater part of it to the schools. If we implement all the proposals, some boards will find that they are able to hold more money centrally, so the services that are centrally controlled by those boards will gain, whereas other boards may be required to give more money to schools and will have less to hold centrally. The result of that will be that their centrally held services may be under pressure.

I am speaking as a representative of a large rural constituency that depends heavily on what is, at present, an unsatisfactory school transport service. I do not want, as a result of this exercise, to end up with a situation that leaves school transport or the school meals services under greater financial pressure. The paper does not deal with how the funding will be allocated, under a relative needs exercise, to the boards. In the interests of equality and the overall good of the education system, we need to be fair to those who administer education as well as to those who benefit from it in the classroom. Together with the review of the local management of schools we must review how the money is allocated to the boards. If we do that, we will end up with a better system.

Oliver Gibson (DUP, West Tyrone)

I welcome the opportunity to speak. I will focus, particularly, on pages 27 and 28 that deal with the key principles for common formula funding. These are the fundamental principles that underpin the direction and the objectives involved.

The first point that I want to make, not just to the Minister but to everyone in the Assembly, was made yesterday afternoon when many of us on these Benches pressed the Minister of Finance and Personnel to consider the idea of equality. We tried to persuade him to ensure equality by ring-fencing. He quickly retreated, on three or four occasions at least, to the wording of the criteria. I am therefore asking that all schools and all boards of governors keenly participate in the exercise. I ask the Minister, as the discussions progress, to reveal the criteria that underpin the key principles to the Committee and all the relevant bodies, because the thinking is emerging that they are involved.

We can have a very nice sounding term such as the "common funding formula", but if the criteria involved do not support that, it can be totally misleading. I want everyone involved in the delivery of education to scrutinise carefully and objectively what is going to be involved.

Point 3.1 indicates a vision. Point 3.2 says that "schools should be funded according to their relative need." Why did the Minister not use the term "educational need"? Is the word "relative" an escape route to try to manipulate the criteria, and could that mean that the funding is not common but skewed for a variety of reasons that are not to do with educational needs? I would alert everyone to that point.

What does he mean by "objective measures"? How does the Minister intend to spell those out? What are those measures? How can we study the criteria and benchmark them against objective measures that have not yet been revealed? Then the Minister uses very nice words like "underpin", "reinforce wider education policy and objectives", "transparent" and "comprehensible". None of these principles is transparent or comprehensible, and they cannot be reinforced unless we know exactly what the Minister wishes to achieve.

That the formula is easy to administer, I would have thought, is a very sensible and important point. I know that my words will be used against me. I have yet to be convinced that there is a great correlation between social need and educational need, because most of the large body of educational information supporting that here and in America is outdated. However, there is much newer evidence coming forward. The old debate over environment versus innateness that has raged for a century is now history in educational terms and thinking. The ideas of how we measure intelligence is now past history. We are looking at new systems and methods of measuring intelligence. A whole new raft of educational thinking has emerged. There is an idea, still current with many people, that somehow you can use social engineering to achieve a predictable outcome. Again, history is littered with a host of failures in that field. One of the great experimenters was dear old Adolf himself, who was so sorely tempted into social engineering that it led him to the idea of genetic engineering. History has dealt and dispensed with many of those ideas, so the Minister had better be very careful about what the real objectives of this exercise are.

Sometimes when I listen to people talking in social jargon I am convinced that they have developed a disease called "socialitis". I myself have a very strong social conscience, a very strong sense of fairness and a very strong sense of justice. However, that idea can be carried to the extreme where it so dominates one’s thinking that one loses sight of the real issues.

What is the real object of the exercise? I put it to the Minister that it is to equip our generations with the education to enable them to compete in a competitive world. We can no longer risk experimenting with the education of our young people. Common funding should be fundamental to the idea that we need to continually improve our educational outcomes and standards. However, as another Member has mentioned, common funding should not be used for anything other than producing the best educational outcomes.

We do not want to reinvent ghettos. I can already see this prospect creeping into the thinking of those in my own constituency who feel beleaguered. At times they feel it is worthless and a waste of time to participate in an exercise the outcomes of which seem predestined. I am asking everyone, including the Minister of Education and his Department, to start to exercise their minds on the outcome of a common funding formula.

We are all too well aware of the inequalities of the last system. A lobby group from north Armagh compared two secondary schools, one of which was receiving about £50,000 a year more than the other. The group was also able to point to gross disparities in funding between primary schools of a similar size. I must stress that in my experience the educational performance of a pupil was never affected by whether he or she could pay for school meals. Many of us could quote similar glowing instances.

As section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 becomes an enforceable issue, the whole idea of equality will now be of paramount concern to those of us whose interest lies in the controlled sector. We are going to be thinking of fairness and justice. We will be looking critically at European legislation; I hope that this will be proofed by European legislation against ideas of unfairness or injustice. I wish this discussion well. I hope that everyone involved in our education system will take a vigorous, healthy and wholesome interest. This is important; its outcome is critical to our future generations.

Gerry McHugh (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak as a Committee member on this subject. I welcome the consultation and the statement by the Minister.

This is one of the current educational objectives of both the Minister and the Department. It is one of the milestones in the educational calendar, along with capital investment in schools and the abolition of the school performance tables.

The Irish-medium promotional body has already been mentioned. Irish is a growing language, and it should be cherished as part of the national heritage of the people of Ireland. The need for Irish-medium education has been proven, and it is a growing need. That should be welcomed, rather than considered to be an unnecessary expense.

There are three reviews that are currently running together. The post-primary review is probably the most important review for a long time. There is also the review of the curriculum and the local management of schools consultation on a common funding formula for grant- aided schools. I welcome the consultation, and in particular the Minister’s assurances that no decisions have yet been made. That is important for all those in schools and anyone who might want to have input into the consultation. I appeal to all the partners in the education system to submit their views by 30 June, or, if that is changed, whatever date is decided.

The need to simplify the budget allocation must not take precedence over the need to allocate funding fairly to where it is most needed, even if complex calculations are required in order to ensure that all the relevant factors are considered. These calculations are part of the Department’s work, and it has expertise in that area. It is important to decide whether we feel that the principles of justice, equality and support for the disadvantaged are appropriately dealt with and acted on.

I draw attention to the issue of the maintenance of school buildings. I have visited schools where windows do not close properly and where there is a lack of insulation. Those schools have higher heating bills than schools that have been recently updated. That particularly affects schools in rural areas and small schools, where there are already difficulties and costs to deal with as a result of the drop in the number of teachers. There is also a health and safety issue when schools become old and dilapidated. In some cases, windows are nailed shut.

The sum allocated to schools for maintenance must take into consideration the age of the premises and the time since the school’s last refurbishment. Small schools, especially small primary schools, need to be protected, as they are an essential part of the life of local communities, especially rural communities. Any new funding formula must ensure investment in high-quality, locally accessible primary education and full-time early-years education which have an effect on the future achievement of pupils.

The Committee for Education has said that schools with similar characteristics but in different areas or sectors receive varying budgets. That is not acceptable, satisfactory or equitable. The Committee welcomes the key objectives of ensuring that schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of the area or sector in which they are situated. Therefore, we ask everyone in the education sector — individuals, schools and others — to take part in the consultation and make their views known. That is more than important at this time.

One difficulty is that there is quite a short time for consultation at what is a very busy time for those in the educational field who want to make their input. We will have to see how that goes along. It is vital that everybody make their views known. Go raibh maith agat.

The sitting was suspended at 12.30 pm.

On resuming (Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr McClelland] in the Chair) —

Eileen Bell (Alliance, North Down)

I, like many others, have many concerns about the current system, and I am also very aware that a review is necessary.

Any Member who is also a member of a school board of governors will know the problems that the current formula has produced for teacher provision, teachers’ salaries, pupil numbers, implementation of the current curriculum, and so on.

The Minister’s key objective in introducing a common local management of schools (LMS) formula — which was to ensure that schools with similar characteristics receive similar levels of funding, regardless of the areas or sectors in which they are located — has to be welcomed. We must work to achieve this objective which, if successfully implemented, will improve the situation in schools for teachers and all pupils.

It is vital, however, that consultation on this process is thorough and relevant. The consultation document should prove very useful. My party will be looking at this document and at the proposals very seriously, on the basic premise that a common funding formula must achieve its objective to benefit all schools and all pupils.

I will outline a few concerns that I have. I am aware that the main factor in funding procedures is the age- weighted pupil unit (AWPU). That should still be the main determining factor, as pupil enrolment numbers determine the number of teachers, support staff, type of equipment, and so on. The present formula for calculating the AWPU is complicated. I will be looking closely at the more simplified proposals contained in the document, and I broadly welcome the skewing of resources towards primary schools. However, the AWPU must be reviewed continually to allow for evolving situations in pupil numbers, classroom conditions, et cetera, especially when the proposals in the Burns review are implemented.

The consultation document states that the funding of individual schools should be in accordance with the relevant need, and I am concerned about what that means. It is down as the first criterion for ensuring needs are met with clear responsibility to all types of pupils. That need must be obvious, and it must be relative to the educational needs in each school. That term will need to be made clear to boards of governors, and they will need proper training with regard to central expenditure. It is clear from the current LMS formula that there is potential for widespread inefficiency with moneys given to them. Guidance must be provided to maintain the efficient and economic provision of services.

Best value initiatives — as mentioned in the document as a mechanism for best practice — may not be as familiar to individual governors as they are to the Department of Education. They must clearly understand their responsibilities and the procedures so that effective implementation can occur.

I must also express my concerns about depending on free school meals or targeting social need (TSN) figures as the basis for funding figures, as they do not always present the correct picture across the schools. I welcome the increase in the TSN funding. However, a closer look needs to be taken at schools which may not be obvious contenders for free school meals or TSN applications but which have low achievers.

I also welcome the introduction of the special education needs factor. Again, I need to be confident that this will be implemented properly, as I have already expressed concerns about the current statementing process, never mind the situation with those children who are difficult to deal with but who are not statemented.

It is encouraging that the document comments on the fact that there are winners and losers under this new formula. I hope that the transitional protection offered will avoid undue and unacceptable turbulence in the funding levels. We must also ensure that the transitional arrangements are effective in helping schools to adjust to the new resource allocation. It would be useful to be told how the "cushioning" method that is mentioned will be implemented. Who will assist that? Will it be the Department or the education and library boards? It must be made known what will happen after the three-year period of adjustment.

I agree that it is vital that we assist and support our primary schools, but we must not do so at the expense of either nursery or post-primary schools. If we are to prepare all our children for future life in a meaningful way, we cannot replace one inequitable system with another. The priority, as the Minister states, must be in the school. Factors such as small school support, the extension of the teacher salary protection factor, funding for the new sports factor and the continued inclusion of other factors mentioned this morning — for example, special unit funding, travellers, English as an additional language, Irish-medium schools and, I hope, integrated education schools, and children of service personnel — must be welcomed. It is essential that the inclusion of all children, whatever their background, be encouraged.

The Alliance Party fully supports a common formula to replace the seven that are currently used to allocate resources to schools. We welcome the consultation document and the helpful response document, in which some of the questions and concerns are highlighted for easy response. I hope that will in some way go towards addressing the concerns that we all have about the timetable for this consultation process. We hope that the consultation, whatever the timetable, is a success. It must be remembered, however — as we in the Assembly know only too well, and sometimes to our cost — that devolving decision making to the local level does not always result in an efficient and effective response, either in financial or people-power terms. I can only hope that the current tensions and problems that are present in schools because of funding difficulties will be eased by these proposals.

To achieve a successful outcome to this process we must ensure that all pupils will have improved facilities and conditions, that teachers will feel better valued and protected and that education overall will be the winner. I hope that everyone interested in those goals will use this process. I support the motion.

Billy Hutchinson (PUP, Belfast North)

First, I declare an interest as a member of the Belfast Education and Library Board. As a city councillor I represent the council on that board. I am also on the board of governors of two primary schools in north Belfast.

I have previously been in contact with the Minister and have discussed the issue of local management of schools and the funding element in particular. Having read the document, there seems to be quite a lot of good things in it. On reading it a second time, I have to say that I have concerns, particularly about the Belfast area and the schools that have to exist there. I know from local Protestant primary schools, especially those in north Belfast — and I am sure that it is the same across Belfast — that we have a shrinking population. There are a number of reasons for that, quite a few of which are down to successive Governments and to planners who badly planned the whole notion of Belfast and its dormitory towns. As a result, we have a shrinking population.

One of my difficulties in this is that we have not looked at teachers’ wages, which are paid out under the local management of schools. While that continues, those sorts of schools will suffer. The reason is that they have teachers who have served more than seven years and who have to be paid on the top line — there is nothing we can do about that. If a school with 104 pupils or less tries to employ all of those teachers, year on year the board of governors will be faced with having to make people redundant. It is not a very nice choice to have to make, particularly if there is no voluntary redundancy. One has to decide who is going to leave the school. Those are always going to be the difficulties until we decide that wages should be taken out and paid centrally.

Some of the issues that stem from that are long-term sick and maternity leave, particularly if subs are brought in. A top-line sub costs £132·86 a day. Usually, all of that must come out of the budget unless the relevant education board pays for that centrally, in which case it pays £100 a day leaving the added cost of £32·86 in statutory sick pay. Those are issues we need to get to grips with.

In my opinion, the Minister has developed many other relevant matters. The changes he has made to the curriculum reserve fund will probably benefit some of the schools that I represent; recognising that there must be redundancies, he has tweaked to cover for that. I can verify that, until now, a number of schools in Belfast that have had to do that have not benefited in any way from the curriculum reserve fund and have been left out for several reasons.

We continue to view school meals as indicative of social need, as indeed they are. However, we also need to remember that a number of these schools are based in socially deprived areas and that education has to be a fundamental right for everybody. That must be considered in the review of post-primary education.

At the beginning of this debate, the Minister expressed the view that investment in early years has to be welcomed. Most of us recognise that that is where investment is needed, so that by the time pupils get to post-primary education they should have the ability to achieve in those particular schools.

Concerning the budget, I want to discuss the whole system of schools having to pay out for maintenance following vandalism. In Belfast both Protestant and Catholic schools are often vandalised. I am not differentiating here, but quite a lot of schools in peace line areas are damaged due to sectarianism. When schools re-open after a break, whether after Easter, when the Easter Rising is commemorated, or when returning in September after the Twelfth of July, the damage caused by vandalism must be paid for out of the budget, and no one wants to take up that issue.

I recall having to fight hard for a school that had been subject to a sectarian attack. Intercom systems that had been put in place because of the tragic massacre in Dunblane in Scotland were destroyed. Still and all, the education board would not pay out. Rather, it told the school to pay it out of its own budget. Consider how many books that money could have bought for that school.

I am also concerned about LMS demands that schools have composite P6 and P7 classes. In the deprived areas where these schools are situated, that policy does not give pupils the opportunity for a proper education and proper preparation for secondary school.

As regards the document’s proposal for sport, I am concerned that the money might be put into equipment rather than expertise. If we seriously want to do something about sport, we should ensure that we have PE teachers in primary schools and that we invest in teachers rather than in equipment. Equipment will not make a difference to the pupils; we need expertise if we really want to produce quality pupils in sport.

I ask the Minister to consider the whole of Belfast and how this would have an impact on it. Unless we remove the budget for teachers’ salaries, then schools in Belfast are going to suffer. Someone spoke earlier about the different sectors. I believe that parents should be allowed to choose which sector they send their child to.

One case that I want to make today is for the integrated schools. I believe that over the last 20 years, parents have come together to make a choice. We are all told about the choice that we have in education. I believe that choice, not only in education but in other walks of life such as employment, is a weasel concept.

Sometimes we are told that we can have one or the other rather than having a choice of more than one. It must be recognised that some parents in our sectarian society have decided that they would like their children to be educated together, and Members should seriously examine how that can be facilitated. Parents who would like their children to be taught in an integrated school should not be prevented from doing so and should not be discriminated against.

Unless the wage bill is removed from LMS, not even a dent will be made in the problem. I welcome the vast majority of the Minister’s document, but the fundamental flaw is the wage bill.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

I commend the Minister for the reception he received at the recent teachers’ union conferences. I am delighted that he did not have to run the same gauntlet as his counterpart in the Republic, the Minister of Education and Science, who has not received quite the same welcome when attending similar conferences. However, here comes the sting. Although I welcome the consultation document it falls far short of what the education system needs. It tinkers at the edges, whereas what is needed is an entire overview of the education system.

Given the proliferation of expensive bodies and administrative systems in the Department of Education, would it not have been better to have asked for consultation on how Members would like to see the education system administered? The management of schools and the formula could then have been examined in the light of that consultation. We are looking at only one aspect of the issue. Sometimes it appears as if we are starting at the wrong end, and we may not get it right.

Gerry McHugh mentioned the Burns review on post- primary education. If recommendations emerge from the review, this could all be a temporary expedient, because Members may be back here shortly re-examining this issue, especially since it addresses the primary and post-primary sectors. I am concerned that Members are seeking responses now when recommendations that will impact on the Minister’s decision will shortly be available.

Given the number of bodies in the Department of Education, I was surprised that it used a private consultancy firm, Coopers & Lybrand, to carry out this exercise. Is the education system so bitty that the Department could not have looked at the issue in a co-ordinated way rather than handing over the job to someone else? It does not speak well for devolution if those jobs have to be given to private consultancies.

I am also concerned about the evidence for increasing the formula for TSN. I welcome TSN, but how was the percentage of 5·5% arrived at? Members will need evidence to convince them that that increase was all that was required. I take issue with Oliver Gibson, who argued that TSN should not be based on issues such as whether children are entitled to free school meals. Social policy research states that where there is deprivation and many children require free school meals, there are parents on benefits or very low incomes. However, the parents may not be on low incomes because that factor has been taken out of the system. But from what we know about deprivation, the children of parents who are on benefits have particular needs, and special resources should be targeted at those children in schools.

As Billy Hutchinson said, the central part of this dilemma is teachers’ salaries. Some 80% of funding goes towards paying the wage bill, which creates enormous insecurity in schools every year as to whether they will have to make teachers redundant.

Surely it would be more sensible to adopt a central funding system, which excludes salaries, to avoid the apparent increasing lack of morale. We do not want to reach a situation similar to that in the Republic of Ireland where teachers are on strike. That is having a huge impact on young people’s education. Northern Ireland may face that situation unless we seriously address the issue of giving teachers permanency and security. Continuity is the most important factor when teachers are educating our children. They will know the children better if they have been in the school for some time.

I am also very concerned about private finance initiatives. The consultation document does not ask for responses on this, and the public/private partnerships may lead to problems in the future. If the projected enrolments in new-build schools are not meeting the targets, will money have to be allocated to cover the cost of the rebuild and redundancies? I am still concerned that opportunities are missed when documents such as this, particularly those relating to the long-term funding and management of schools, go out for consultation without the views of teachers and others having been sought.

Counting, particularly the age-weighted pupil units, is a very difficult issue. On the one hand, we do not want to prejudice the system against schools that are trying to expand. In the past, Mr Billy Hutchinson, Mrs Bell, myself and others have raised the matter of new schools, especially those in the integrated sector. We do not want to prejudice opportunities for them, but we would be doing that if we were to detract from funding for smaller schools. On the other hand, we do not want to put larger schools at a disadvantage.

I received a letter from the principals of five primary schools who argue that the recent round of funding disadvantaged them, and I am sure that the Minister received the same correspondence. Extra funding was given to smaller schools, and the creation of a maximum for larger primary schools meant that they received less funding per pupil. It is not impossible for us to get around that problem. There should never be large numbers of losers in this system.

Skewing resources to the primary and early years sector is an important target. However, given the recent demographic trends that point to the need to sustain post-primary schools, how will the Minister meet both sectors if we are not to have losers? In other words, the numbers are going to fall in early years in primary schools, but we have always agreed that we should target that and set an aim for our education system to improve, particularly where there is disadvantage, the education of very young children. In doing that, I hope that secondary schools are not put at a disadvantage.

We need more research on equity and effectiveness. Clear equity issues exist with regard to provision for post-16 and vocational students and allocations to sixth form grammar school students. Equity between the school systems is also an issue — the integrated sector versus the controlled, maintained and voluntary sectors. Not all integrated schools are permitted to establish sixth forms, and not all existing sixth form provision is cost-effective. The entry and exit rules must be examined. I hope that those rules will be examined in detail at the end of the consultation process. If the research is falling down anywhere it is that we are lacking in accurate information.

Finally, I agree with Mr Billy Hutchinson’s point about pupils who have special social needs — disruptive children. I am sure that other Members have received many letters from parents whose children have been expelled or suspended from school.

They have attempted to get them into other schools, which are reluctant to take those children unless they receive extra resources. The frequently disruptive child has an impact on the receiving school, and extra resources may be needed.

We must ensure additional resources per pupil. If we do not examine the formulae, many of those children may go into what were, in the past, considered to be schools that no one wanted to touch. The schools that accept those children should be given extra resources. In that way, we can continue to give the children some incentives, rather than having them in a system in which their behaviour is reciprocated by their peers. If those children mix with other children who are settled, the receiving schools and their teachers should have their needs addressed accordingly.

That said, this is an important document in relation to the current consultations. I hope that the Minister has allowed considerable flexibility. I hope that he will respond to some of those issues, because my major concern is that we are putting the cart before the horse.

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

I am not sure why this debate has been called in this form. I did not hear the Minister’s explanation this morning, because the debate started earlier than anticipated. The Assembly should note that it is most unusual for a Minister to announce a consultation document in that way. Given the Minister’s background and the way in which he has abused his portfolio for party political ends, I can only assume that there are one or two explanations for that.

We all — especially those of us who have been directly involved in the Committee for Education — have received considerable representation, from some sectors in particular, concerning the funding of schools. There is a belief that small schools and primary schools have been disadvantaged. I suppose it is hoped that the general impression given by the consultation will be that all those problems will be magically sorted out. However, on reading the small print, and given that it is unlikely that sufficient resources will be made available to bring us up to the high aggregated schools budget (ASB) scenario, there will be losers. That, of course, is in the fine print and for later.

Perhaps another reason for bringing this forward at this stage is that when the Department’s initial document was produced, there were some elements from whom the Minister would have been very unhappy to have had criticism, especially those more sympathetic towards the maintained sector. Those people were jumping up and down before the Committee for Education, because there was a suggestion that there would be some loss to the maintained sector as a result of the proposed changes.

I note — and perhaps this is the Minister’s reason for bringing the motion forward in this form — that without any explanation, using exactly the same arguments and without even having the ingenuity to change the words around, the Minister has changed the formula. In doing so, he was able to satisfy both the strident complaints of the SDLP and the more restrained voice — because they could not do anything about it — of his own party about the results of the initial document.

The Minister is using his position to manipulate his portfolio to please a particular constituency and calm fears that may have arisen before an election campaign.

He has blatantly directed half of this year’s capital funding towards the Sinn Féin target constituencies of West Tyrone, Mid Ulster and Foyle and totally ignored the criteria set down, even by the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS). When a Minister abuses his position like that, I can be forgiven for my interpretation of the exercise.

Before people jump up and down in support of the matter, one should note the conclusions reached at the start of the consultation document. It states that some schools will lose more than 5% — some nearly 10% — of their budget. Those schools are likely to be from the Belfast Education and Library Board area and in the controlled sector. I will spell it out for some Members. For a secondary school of around 1,000 pupils, the loss in its budget could be in the region of £150,000 to £170,000 a year. Even if a third of that can be absorbed by cutting back on books, heating and lighting, et cetera, that is the equivalent of losing four teachers, which would put average class sizes up by two pupils per class. That is the bad news contained in the document. It admits that a large part of the budget loss is directed at the controlled sector. Therefore we can see why totally unjustified changes have been made to the original document presented to the Committee for Education.

It would be unrealistic for anyone to expect that if you are going to cut the cake up in a different way, some sectors will not lose out. Some good arguments have been advanced by the primary school sector. The whole thrust of the current education debate has been to devote resources early on in the primary school year to ensure that problems that arise later are nipped in the bud. That requires making more resources available, especially at the lower primary level — hence some of the changes in the age-weighted pupil unit (AWPU) and some other suggested changes. That will be a long-term exercise, but if it eradicates some of the difficulties that lead to extra expenditure in the post-primary sector, that will be a worthwhile investment.

I wish to discuss other aspects of the document. The main difference between the original document presented to the Committee for Education and the consultation document is on the aspect of targeting social need (TSN) and particularly the emphasis placed on free school meals. That is why there is a skewing of resources away from the controlled sector and towards the maintained sector.

That was the sop that the Minister gave to those who nearly blew a gasket when it was first suggested and who made it clear that they would not support the measure if that outcome was retained in the exercise.

Targeting social need will now be divided into two sections — the social deprivation section and the special educational needs section. An arbitrary amount of additional money was to be poured in, increasing the top slice from 5% to 5·5%, without any rationale. Initially, the available sum — £44 million — was to have been divided equally between the social deprivation factor, which was to be based entirely on free school meals, and the special educational needs factor. I would have thought that special educational need would be based on some educational factor. It was suggested that it should be based on the Key Stage 2 tests. Thirty-five per cent of the money would be allocated on that basis, and the allocation of another 15% would be based on free school meals.

The argument in the consultation document is — word-for-word — the same as that in the original document, which was sent to the Committee for Education: not even a comma has been changed. Yet the percentages in the formula have magically changed, giving approximately £5 million extra to people on free school meals.

The argument is that free school meals are a good indicator of educational need. However, according to the Department’s own statistics, that is not the case. I do not care what anyone in the Assembly has said about the correlation between free school meals and educational disadvantage. The Department has produced statistics on absence rates and on achievement at GCSE level. According to those statistics, 60% of results fall outside a range of 5% above or below the suggested trend line. There is no correlation. The scatter diagram shows that the correlation that people talk about so glibly does not exist. Somehow, the Minister, without changing his argument, has changed the formula in the consultation document. The result is that one section of the school population, concentrated in Belfast, is going to find itself disadvantaged by up to 10% of the school budget.

Billy Hutchinson (PUP, Belfast North)

As someone who lives and works in a working-class area, does the Member agree that if we were to take away the definition based on free school meals, things would be even worse for deprived schools in Belfast?

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

No, I do not. I will give you my reasons. If you look —

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

The Member should address his remarks through the Chair.

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

If the Member looked at educational achievement in those schools, he would see that if money were to be allocated on the basis of achievement, funds would still be skewed towards many of the schools in working-class areas. The best measure of what a school needs to deliver the curriculum and achieve a certain output is the educational achievement of the youngsters. As Mrs Bell said, low educational achievement is not confined to people from low-income families.

When you allocate most of the targeting social need money on the basis of free school meals, you disadvantage those youngsters. More importantly, the Minister has changed the figure arbitrarily, because that gets around a particular difficulty he was having with some of the SDLP Members — a difficulty that he would also have had with his own constituents eventually. That is where the unfairness lies.

When the Minister talks about the principles that he is adhering to, he says that the formula should be transparent and as comprehensive as possible. He has got off to a very poor start. On one hand his officials present the Committee with a certain formula, and then without any explanation, other than it gives a different outcome as to which schools win and which schools lose, he changes that formula totally. That is hardly transparency or fairness. Perhaps that is what we have come to expect from the current Minister of Education.

The Minister stated in the list of principles that the formula should support schools in delivering the curriculum. It should also underpin and reinforce wider educational policy and objectives. If the Minister is abiding by those principles then why is the money that is being top-sliced and the money that is available for special educational needs not being targeted at educational measures as opposed to social measures? That is an important question.

Billy Hutchinson and Monica McWilliams mentioned something that worries me also. There is a certain amount of sympathy for removing the wage bill from school budgets and determining it centrally. I thought that the whole idea of local management of schools, of which this is part, was designed to allow them to make their own decisions about how they wish to deliver the service to youngsters. It may well be that some schools will decide that that can be best achieved by promoting teachers and retaining experienced teachers. It may well be that other schools are happy to allow experienced teachers to leave and have lower paid, less experienced teachers just to keep pupil/teacher ratios down.

Once wages become centrally funded, that aspect of the local decision-making process will be removed —[Interruption]

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

I ask Members not to engage in idle conversation.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

A point that teachers make to their union representatives is that it would be good if it worked like that and that local schools could decide to promote teachers or recruit new teachers — obviously at a lower pay level, at spine point six.

The problem is that teachers might have been at the same schools for a long time. Therefore those schools would not have any choice and would have to pay wages at spine point nine. Consequently, they would have to make new teachers redundant or amalgamate classes, and it often happens that two classes of 23 pupils end up in a single class of more than 35 pupils. Those are the choices that schools are facing. It is argued that it is unfair for teachers and local school management to face such choices and that it would be much better if we looked at the matter strategically and sensibly.

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

That would be a fair point if there were an unlimited amount of money in the central fund. Where funds are limited — which will happen — that flexibility will not be exercised, and the Department will ultimately determine the number of teachers at each level and the total number of teachers in each school. That is where the flexibility will be taken away.

The issue of how teacher salaries are dealt with needs to be very carefully addressed. It is not as simple as taking money from the Budget and giving it to the Department. If you do that, you will lose flexibility.

Members must look closely at the conclusions reached in this document. We must look closely at the changes that have occurred in the document since the original version was presented. The Minister, if he wants to be transparent, must explain why he has produced a different formula when using the same arguments. He must show whether those changes have been designed to ensure that the outcome favours one particular sector of education that, of course, he is prone to lobbying for.

Ken Robinson (UUP, East Antrim)

I am sure that the Minister, by this stage, feels like the man who asked for directions and received the answer, "If I were you, I would not start from here". Many conflicting statements have been made.

Minister, has this document been produced in Irish and Ulster-Scots as well as in English?

Like Billy Hutchinson, who has now left, I wish to declare an interest. I too am a member of two boards of governors, and, therefore, I come to this with some background in education.

I preface my comments on this long-overdue but nonetheless welcome consultation document by reminding the Minister of his Department’s key objective as stated on page five. If that principle is firmly adhered to and all schools, regardless of the sector or area in which they are located, receive similar levels of funding, such an equitable and transparent system will be welcomed by all in the House. In that vein, the matter of actual teacher costs rather than average teacher costs must be resolved. That could make a fundamental difference to small schools, rural schools and schools in TSN areas.

Although the teachers’ salary protection mechanism has been in place and has lessened the financial difficulties experienced by schools, the Minister must revisit and refocus on that area. Teaching costs have also been referred to; they often reflect the length of service of staff. Therefore boards of governors, in an effort to balance the books, may on occasion be tempted, for financial reasons, to seek less experienced and, therefore, less expensive staff. That can often happen at a TSN school that most needs the expertise of an experienced teacher but finds that the financial implications unfortunately outweigh the educational necessities.

The common funding formula would also ensure that these schools could skew more of their budgets internally towards the provision of books and materials. It is frightening to look at the few pounds that are spent on books and materials. The figure of 80% for teachers’ salary costs has been referred to; I suggest that 90% is, perhaps, a more accurate figure.

The efficient delivery of the curriculum via the most proficient teachers available should outweigh any consideration of the sanctity of the current LMS model. I refer the Minister and his officials to page 75 of the consultation document. In an attempt to justify the LMS model, the Department is frightened that it might be seriously weakened if the actual teacher costs were taken back into the Department. Sammy Wilson referred to teacher and principal flexibility. I welcomed LMS when I was a principal; I looked forward to creating a nest egg from which my school could benefit and to producing all those things that the education and library board could not give me. Unfortunately, that was not how the system worked. Most teachers and principals now find that there is little real flexibility in the system.

The proposed introduction of the most recent enrolment figures will be helpful for schools in their pursuit of local management of resources. It will diminish the prospect of a future clawback scenario, which is currently a consideration in many schools that have seriously fluctuating populations. We have seen that par excellence in Belfast during the summer months, with school populations disappearing almost overnight.

The premises factor presented the Minister with the opportunity to be as radical as possible. It was a chance to integrate the voluntary grammar schools and the grant-maintained integrated schools under the umbrella of the education and library boards. Surely that would have led to a reduction in the duplication of services, a simpler formula and the opportunity to use the undoubted expertise that resides in the education and library boards.

I welcome the small percentage increase in TSN, which will enable schools to tackle social deprivation and special educational needs — the core problems long associated with low achievement. Despite reference to local and international research — and the uptake of free school meals has been referred to in the Chamber as a very good indicator of social need — I am still not totally convinced. However, the task is about tackling educational underachievement, wherever it is found, and I am pleased that extra resources will be made available to tackle the problem.

I note the working party’s concern that there might be some local difficulties as Key Stage 2 results, which are essentially school-based, could also be used as performance indicators. However, if the Department puts proper safeguards into place, Key Stage 2 results will prove to be a step in the right direction, especially if they can be linked with a robust, baseline assessment at year 1.

I remind the Minister of my previous request for a review of the current early-years arrangements so that we can be totally sure that we are building our primary and post-primary sectors on an educationally sound foundation. Other Members have expressed the same concern in their comments today.

As regards small school support, being the former principal of a two-teacher school west of the Bann, I fully appreciate the benefits that small rural schools can accrue, now that their problems have been identified. It has taken many years, but I am glad that the document has at least identified the problems faced by principals who teach in that scenario. I fully support the mechanism that would release those principals from the classroom situation for at least one day per week, so that they could attend to their increasing administrative and management duties.

I am not fully convinced about the Department’s reference to teachers’ salary costs and the role that boards of governors may have had in the past as having led to financial difficulties for some schools today. I am sure it is not beyond the ingenuity of the Department to introduce stricter guidelines to curb the enthusiasm of some boards of governors — the situation will slowly resolve itself via teacher retirements and movements to other posts and other schools. Again, I refer to the actual, as opposed to the average, teacher costs. While the teacher salary protection factor is welcome, it is only a safety net and should be used only in the interim.

I welcome the new sports factor, and I congratulate the authors of the consultation document for including it. It is, at least, a realisation that there has not been equality of provision and of opportunity in sport across our educational sectors. The sports factor is to be welcomed, as it will ensure that the equal and efficient delivery of that part of the school curriculum is a fact and not just a fiction. It is also welcome on general public health grounds, as it will enable schools to properly introduce all pupils to the joys and benefits of a wide variety of physical activities and team sports — surely something that will help build habits of personal endeavour and community co-operation.

I welcome the emergence of the document, and I encourage all who have an interest in our children, and in the future welfare of our society, to look at it in detail, to study its contents, to reflect upon its many implications and to respond with positive suggestions.

However, the proof of its effectiveness will be evident when schools in TSN areas feel that they are operating on a level playing field and schools in non-TSN areas are confident that they have not suffered any diminution in their resources as a result. That is an objective we should all be working towards. I commend the document.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Several Members have declared an interest. The only interest I can declare is 30 years in the teaching profession in which it was obvious that there were serious inequalities. Now there is an opportunity to address those inequalities for all children, not just Protestant or Catholic children.

I have read the document carefully, and I may have made some mistakes and picked up some things incorrectly. However, even Sammy Wilson makes mistakes, if one is to judge by his latest press statement on the DUP website, in which he attacks the SDLP’s policy on education. The Member really ought to use a spellchecker on it and rejig the grammar.

Agreeing a common funding formula for grant-aided schools has to be one of the greatest challenges ever faced by the Department of Education. Yet it is an absolute necessity, given that there are seven formulae in use at present, some with different emphases and with little to do with education, targeting social need or addressing basic equality factors.

The consultation document is well-presented and sets out what appears to be some very simple options. Yet, as the Minister freely acknowledges, children are more complex than that. The existing inequalities are much more fundamental. There has to be some degree of apprehension that in order to reach agreement, please the majority of people and win approval, key factors could be missed. That would be a tragedy. We have to ask: is the funding adequate?

Given that one in four people leave school with serious problems with literacy and numeracy — and I am not really including Mr Sammy Wilson in that — and that there are worrying differences in levels of attainment across the five education and library boards, one has to ask if the proposals in this document will improve the situation or make it worse in some cases. Will disparity between boards continue to exist? Does the reaching of a common formula divert the focus, at least temporarily, from serious issues that are making children different, causing them to under-achieve or, indeed, fail? What is in a common formula for those schools that are faced with serious challenges, which at times seem almost insurmountable? Will children who start out in life with horrendous disadvantages, such as broken homes, family upheaval, social disadvantage and other problems, be adequately accounted for by the new formula? It is critical, surely, that they are.

If economies have to be made, where will that happen? Term workers are all too often the victims of cutbacks. Their position must be ring-fenced, because they play a fundamental part, whether as classroom assistants or in other parts of the school, in ensuring that children receive personal attention. It is not clear what happens if substitute teachers are required. Will enforced economies mean that classes are doubled-up to make savings? The point I am making is that where reductions occur, soft targets must not be picked on, and the needs of children must not come second. Ideally, it would be much better to have no losers, but that is not possible, given all that must be done with the block grant.

It is to be welcomed that those schools qualifying for an increased budget will have access to it as soon as possible. That is critical if the reasons for inequality are to be addressed in the shortest possible time. We need to be clear about what is meant by relative need, and the principles of equality and targeting social need must apply to that definition. The delivery of the school curriculum must be clearly enhanced rather than diminished by changes in the funding formula, and the formula must underpin and reinforce the wider educational policy and objectives.

The success of this exercise will be judged by the degree of transparency that exists in the new policy. It is essential that it be logical, easy to administer and capable of being applied fairly. We need to be satisfied that children in every part of Northern Ireland, and in every kind of school, have an equal opportunity to achieve. Children who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own must have their needs ring-fenced so that the injustices that existed in the past are consigned to history. Is there sufficient scope to protect small rural schools in both primary and secondary sectors? How will the proposed changes fit into the challenge of regenerating the rural communities that are so important to life on this island?

I can assure the Minister that this is one document that will not gather dust. It will be scrutinised from cover to cover to ensure that the changes are in the best interests of the people who matter most; our children and their children’s children.

Barry McElduff (Sinn Féin, West Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an díospóireacht seo. De réir mo bharúla, is ábhar fíorthábhachtach é seo. Is é an rud atá faoi chaibidil againn ná an dóigh a leithroinneann an Roinn Oideachais airgead ar ár gcuid scoileanna.

I welcome the consultation. This subject has taken up a good deal of the Education Committee’s time to date and will continue to do so in the coming weeks and months. Similar to Mr Dallat, I enjoyed Mr Sammy Wilson’s contribution — he displayed tremendous ingenuity and imagination. I will never know how he managed to embroider Sinn Féin’s electoral strategy west of the Bann on to this document. He also used phrases such as "jumping up and down" and "blowing gaskets". That terminology is perhaps more fitting to his behaviour than to that of those to whom he attributes it. He might deserve a gold star for his imagination, but there is room for improvement in his punctuality. He arrived late for an education debate today, not for the first time.

I welcome the reassurance that this is to be a genuine consultation exercise and that decisions have not yet been made. I also welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The way in which money is channelled to classrooms is a very important aspect of the education system. There is widespread concern among different schools that the seven different formulae used at present to determine budgets delegated to schools have led to discrepancies between board areas.

I agree with the Chairman of the Education Committee, Mr Kennedy, about asking the Minister to consider an extension to the consultation period. Schools, especially post-primary ones, are currently busy with final exam preparations. Thousands of pieces of coursework are being marked and parcelled away. Far from winding down, teachers are now on an upward curve of workload and stress. For many in education, the second half of June might be the first real opportunity to give this consultation document the serious thought that it merits. As one of the Education Committee members who asked for the deadline to be moved to the end of June, I would like the Minister to consider moving the deadline forward in the light of its delayed start. That point was adequately covered by Mr Kennedy.

I agree with the Minister that there is a need to standardise how delegated school budgets are calculated. That need for standardisation should not obscure the fact that we are dealing with a society riven with disadvantage. In particular, it is important to realise that disadvantage is not only due to the circumstances of a particular child and his or her parent’s income. A child can also be disadvantaged by the area in which he or she lives. In a seminal piece of research carried out in Scotland in 1991 by Garner and Raudenbush entitled ‘Neighbourhood Effects on Educational Attainment: A Multi-level Analysis’, it was said that psychological studies have shown that some types of residential environments are associated with particular personality characteristics. These predispose individuals to respond differently to education. The nature of the residential environment can facilitate or constrain interaction among individuals. Restricted contact with adults has been shown to influence young children’s language development, and some young adults may be more susceptible to peer group pressures in such an environment.

There are other socio-economic factors in areas in which people live to suggest that there is a substantial variation in educational attainment between neighbourhoods. That is an important factor that should be added to the overall equation. The effect of area or neighbourhood deprivation is additional to the effect of individual and family background influences. When translated into employment prospects, that may be of real significance in determining the future life chances of young people. To put it simply, a child carries with him or her disadvantage from the area in which he or she lives. Two academics from Queen’s University, Daly and Shuttleworth, confirmed this trend — where one lives is as important as who one is or what one’s characteristics are. There is a compounding effect of disadvantage; this has an impact on a school in terms of the number of children there who suffer from social disadvantage.

Research has clearly established the link between socio-economic status and positive attitudes to schooling. Therefore if a group of 10 pupils includes three from disadvantaged backgrounds and seven from better-off backgrounds, it is likely that the attitudes of the seven will influence the three. The reverse is also true.

I suggest that in targeting social need in schools the degree of social need of the whole catchment area or school population, and not just of individual pupils, should be included as a factor.

I express caution about the inclusion of Key Stage 2 results in the calculation of TSN funding, particularly in the case of primary schools. There is a lack of standardisation, and it is financially unsound, because it channels funding to a school on the basis of the results of its outgoing pupils, not the needs of its intake. That is unfair, because it penalises those schools that achieve better results against all odds.

I welcome the fact that Mr Tommy Gallagher and my Colleague Mr Gerry McHugh emphasised rurality. Reference was made to schools with similar characteristics. School transport pressures are enormous in rural areas.

I would be interested to hear views on the premises factor and the grounds factor — the sports factor — to which some Members have referred. Similar to other Members, I very much welcome the proposals that lead to an increase in full-time early years education. Over the long haul it will be a wise investment and economy. It is obvious that that needs to be better co-ordinated and financed than previously.

I want to make a few disparate points now — disparate as opposed to desperate; there is an "i" in there as opposed to an "e". I read an article recently in which a senior official from one of the teachers’ unions referred to a demographic time bomb of dwindling numbers in secondary schools. We have that problem at present with our primary schools. Is the Minister looking at that trend?

Another area, which is often referred to by educationalists, is the duplication of services in relation to the five education and library boards and the Department. There is a need to direct more money into the classroom, rather than top-slicing the money for administration. We are talking about a review of educational administration and an increase in the overall pot.

Ms Monica McWilliams asked a very sensible question in relation to the marginal increase in TSN money from 5% to 5·5%. How was that figure arrived at? The free school meals entitlement is as good a mechanism as any currently in existence for arriving at an analysis of deprivation. However, perhaps the incorporation of the neighbourhood effect into the calculations would further equalise opportunities for individuals presently suffering deprivation.

Finally, I raise a discordant note in relation to what some Members have said about support for Irish- medium education. It is only discordant for some Members, because I know that others support my view. I believe strongly that "a comparatively small factor" in the calculations should be the inclusion of support for Irish-medium schools and units. The Department proposes to bring this on to a consistent footing and to continue its inclusion in the future.

I record my party’s support, and I express disappointment and surprise that the pro-agreement Ulster Unionist Party is attempting to see this aspect eradicated from the formula calculation. It is as if the Good Friday Agreement and the bounden duty on the Minister and Ministers and on the Department and Departments to take resolute action to promote Irish-medium education did not exist. Quite clearly it does exist. There is plenty of room for support for catch-up on the part of Irish- medium education and other sectors where there has been underinvestment in the past. Go raibh maith agat.

Joan Carson (UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I should declare an interest as a former teacher, the principal of a rural primary school and a member of some boards of governors.

We all wish to see education money going to where it is needed and wanted — to the classrooms and the pupils, and not to administration. Money that is well spent in the classrooms will have results for future generations. Northern Ireland has a small population of only 1·7 million, but we have a plethora of administrative bodies. Has the time not come for the House to look at some consolidation? Do we really need them all? Could savings not be made by reducing the duplication of administration and the plethora of education sectors?

The key principles listed on page 7 of the consultation document are laudable, but I am concerned with some of the wording. For example, in paragraph v.i at the first bullet point it says:

"schools should be funded according to relative need".

Who is going to decide what is relative? At the second bullet point it says:

"unavoidable and significant additional expenditure".

Who is going to deal with that? It seems a bit wavery. Then it says at the third bullet point that

"the formula should support schools in delivering the curriculum".

If schools are inspected only every seven years or more, who knows which school is doing what or what curriculum is being delivered?

Some rural schools are under intense pressure from a falling enrolment, and I welcome the additional funding that is to be found to enable those schools to employ an extra teacher to enable principals to spend one day a week on management and administrative duties. I was never afforded that luxury.

I note that the pupil count will exclude nursery and special classes and Irish-medium units. Children in those schools have a higher financial rating. How encouraging to have an Irish-medium unit to boost funding, but what about an Ulster-Scots unit? Can rural schools in Antrim and Down have parity of treatment and an Ulster-Scots unit?

Continuing on the theme of equality, I cannot understand why Irish-language schools need preferential treatment. I read with great amusement that these schools have been given an extra £100 per head in a lump sum — £31,000, almost £32,000, per school — for administration and management. On page 105 of the consultation document it states that this extra £100 is to meet the cost of teacher time spent on preparing materials and delivering an extra subject at Key Stage 2. If equality is to prevail in schools, should extra money not also be made available for a European language? That too could be considered as an extra and vital subject, given our developing European links. That should be considered carefully.

One group of children is not being treated equally, and that is the children in some of the preparatory schools. They have hardly even been mentioned in the document, and they gained funding set at only 30% of the approved teaching costs. Their parents have made a choice, exactly the same choice that is given to parents who wish to have their children taught through the medium of Irish. Why is there no equality of treatment for those children whose parents have made their choice? That must also be looked at carefully.

Boards of governors have a great responsibility in the appointment of staff, and they have the added concern of ascertaining how new appointments and salaries can affect the school budgets. More research should be done into the possibility of removing teachers’ salaries from the LMS. Boards of governors are unpaid and should not have to undertake problems of school finance that should be, or perhaps could be, better dealt with by a central administrative body.

Schools of similar size have great variations in the salaries paid to staff, and some schools have principals and vice-principals holding protected salaries, even though their enrolments have fallen. This is an unreasonable burden on school budgets and another reason for removing teachers’ salaries from the LMS.

In the chapter ‘Funding Outcomes’ such woolly terms as "assumptions", "reasonably accurate" and "may be considerably less" are used. These words are vague and could lead to abuse.

I urge all interested persons — parents, teachers, boards of governors, retired teachers, people with interests in children — to read the consultation in the interests of our children, and to try to ensure that all children have equal treatment with regard to school funding.

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

Everybody is in the humour for declaring interests, so I had better declare mine. I sit on a board of governors, and I have been a teacher for many years.

I support the motion, and I welcome the opportunity to deal with this serious problem. It is not a new problem; it has been a source of longstanding concern for many involved in the profession, and others. As Members are aware, it is also an important and significant part of the Programme for Government, which set out to create a single funding formula with regard for equality and the New TSN.

However, who could disagree with an investigation into how available resources should be more equitably distributed? One of the outcomes of the document is that there will be an increase — and a considerable increase, in some cases — of funding for smaller schools, particularly rural primary schools. That emphasis by the Minister of Education and the Department is to be welcomed.

Members have listened to, watched and lived through too many instances in which local rural schools were closed down, thus causing great distress to the community. Once the school goes, that community begins to lose its identity — it is like taking the heart of a rural community. However, it is good to see that efforts are being made to ensure small schools’ survival because those schools can provide a competent curriculum — that is particularly important, and that is where resources are so important.

However, if the corollary of that is to try to reduce funding in the secondary sector, which is already hard-pressed, I fear that educationalists in both sectors will be unhappy. Robbing Peter to pay Paul will not work and will not be accepted.

I also looked with some interest at the effects on the education and library boards when a reduction of £15 million was suggested in the higher options. I noticed that the Belfast Education and Library Board managed to save some money in the funding arrangements, but other boards will have to pay for that reduction. The South Eastern Education and Library Board will have to pay £1·5 million, and the other boards will have to pay roughly £3 million, £4 million and £5 million. The £15 million received from that will be used to help with some of the proposals. I wonder if that has been rationalised. When the proposals are being examined it is hoped that sufficient time is given to examining how the boards will deal with that reduction.

Do we wait to see how the review of local services pans out? My own preference is that we proceed now with funding and the establishment of principles rather than wait for the outcome of the review. Perhaps the outcome is relevant to boards and what will happen to them, but the significant point to be addressed is how they are to achieve that saving. The Minister referred to TSN’s providing some assistance through the Curriculum Advisory and Support Service (CASS) and other mechanisms. My fear is that the first thing to be cut will be the CASS provision that boards provide, which could result in redundancies. What will happen to substitute cover? The situation may arise in which a primary school head teacher cannot take a day away from school because substitute cover is unavailable.

Commonality of funding requires some detailed examination. Why should centrally held resources, which involve many schemes that schools welcome and readily participate in, be included in the general schools budget? Should that not come as an initiative from the Department? Does it not create an imbalance to have it included in the general schools budget? Perhaps separate funding is the answer.

We are told that the implementation of a common LMS formula will bring greater fairness, consistency and transparency to school funding. Members have already spoken about LMS, and I do not think I am alone in thinking that LMS is a con job carried out on educationalists and a secure basis on which to build a budgetary regime.

Several Members have already stated that on average, 80% of the schools’ budget is spent on salaries. I agree with Ken Robinson’s point, because my experience has been that the percentage is often 90% of the schools’ budget. Some Members are not paying due regard to the awful situation that that can produce. As each year passes and the age profile of the teaching staff increases, a significant economic scissors exercise is initiated. That cuts into the non-salary part of the budget to such an extent that head teachers carry an enormous burden trying to make ends meet and provide additional resources. The Department has given some support, but essentially it is not a good system for debasing a budgetary profile, and it must not be tolerated.

Management committees are faced with the possibility of making staff redundant to undo the scissors effect. And who will be made redundant? Experienced teachers, the most valuable resource, will be made redundant, because they earn the highest salaries. Is that fair to our profession? Is this what we want to do — remove the best teachers? More importantly, is it fair to our children to remove their best resource — professional, experienced teachers? That is what has happened. Nobody in the Chamber today can put their hand on their heart and say that that has not happened. I am sure that Members know of examples, and I can give them to you if you need them.

I hope that the inquiry into the local management of schools, which I understand is in tandem with this consultation, will ensure that this Thatcherite policy is got rid of. That policy was about trying to make schools more businesslike. We cannot make businesses out of our schools. We have learned that it cannot be done — mostly with regret. In any new proposals, the Department of Education should meet teaching costs in full.

As a former history teacher, I would like to be permitted to give the Minister and my good friend, Sammy Wilson, a brief history lesson in TSN. In the early 1990s, the former Department of Education for Northern Ireland set aside 5% of the schools’ budget for social need. That was meant to ensure that schools with deprived children would receive extra funding. The money was then allocated on the basis of the number of children who were entitled to free school meals, which was the indicator that was used at the time.

The setting aside of only 5% was criticised in 1997 by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in its report ‘Underachievement in Northern Ireland Secondary Schools’. It concluded that

"it is quite clear that the figure of 5% is simply based on previous expenditure."

There was no rationale; the figure was based only on previous expenditure.

TSN funding is money that should have been spent on educational projects, but in a new money scenario. In other words, it should not have been done in the same way as before.

The Committee looked at the identified needs of TSN in 1997.

"The 5% does not seem to have been arrived at by a process which recognised TSN as a priority."

That 5% was also criticised by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR), who agreed with the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the allocation of TSN was merely old money with a new name. SACHR said:

"a 5% top slicing does not begin to address the disparity between, for example, the notional ‘costs’ of a student from the highest and lowest social class, public spending on the former …".

That is important, particularly for those interested in the private or preparatory school agenda. I repeat:

— "public spending on the former"

— that is, the higher —

"being about 64% higher than on their poorer counterpart."

That is some disparity. Do not challenge me on those statistics — challenge the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights.

The Minister’s proposals are before us. He suggests raising the figure to 5·5%, and, as he indicated, that means an extra £4 million for schools with many disadvantaged children. Plainly, this does not constitute a significant skewing of resources towards those most in need, especially when one considers that the 5% never represented new money in the first place. I find this aspect of the document disappointing. The Minister needs to review the notional cost of educating children from poor and rich backgrounds and then make a realistic inroad towards equalising it.

It is clear that an extra £4 million will not do that.

We heard comments about the number of disruptive children being on the increase. All the educational research that I ever came across linked disruption in the classroom with social disadvantage of one sort or another. There is an increasing need to provide resources to help deal with those problem children.

It is not all the responsibility of the Minister of Education. There is also a responsibility on the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to provide additional resources in many areas to help with disruptive children. The Minister will recall that the last time I spoke on this subject in the House, disruptive children were the problem that I was endeavouring to identify, but other people were talking about different kinds of political disruption. It is an issue that needs to be addressed. Under the heading of social need, a great deal could be done.

We should welcome this document as a first step, but we need to cautiously await the outcome of the consultation period with the individual schools. Only then will we get a real picture of how we should proceed, and from that we will get our recommendations.

Donovan McClelland (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Antrim)

I am trying to squeeze in a couple more Members before the Minister responds.

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

How very perceptive of you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to detect that I have just finished my speech.

Iris Robinson (DUP, Strangford)

I welcome the opportunity to speak about this document, and I have to declare an interest as I am also on a board of governors.

While it is laudable to desire a common formula, we must not blind ourselves to a number of crucial points. Too often since the Minister came to power we have seen wholesale discrimination in a number of areas. Education is now, in my opinion, the most discriminatory Department in Northern Ireland. There is a very real concern that this common formula is a mask to encourage yet more discrimination against the controlled sector.

Devising a new methodology for funding education is a bureaucrat’s delight. If we read the spin, everyone is a winner. We heard the same thing when the student-powered unit of resources (SPURs) formula was introduced into higher education, although no one in the Department is capable of explaining why some colleges have been losing out.

First, any common formula must not simply be a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul. If it is a matter of removing money from the secondary/grammar sector for the primary sector, that will not be acceptable. Any legal challenges that they might bring forth because of any losses would be right and proper.

Secondly, the primary sector has not been receiving its proper and legitimate share of the funding. There is no doubt that the primary sector will be the biggest gainer from this new formula. That will not, however, address the underinvestment that is only too readily apparent. No common formula will address that. The real question for the primary sector is what steps will be taken to deal with the underinvestment. The debate over a common formula must not be used as a foil to cover up this crucial issue.

Thirdly, no common formula will address the obvious gravy-train effect that some elements bring to some schools. If we take TSN, for example, in the form of free school meals, there is overwhelming evidence that there is a lower take-up in the controlled sector than in other sectors. As a result, controlled schools are losing out, because Protestants traditionally do not seek Government handouts. There is absolutely nothing in this document that will address that issue, nor any indication that either the Minister or his Department has any interest in dealing with it.

Fourthly, there is an imperative that per capita weighting actually reflects what it costs to deliver the core curriculum in the classroom. So far, that has not been reflected in primary funding. It cannot be overlooked in favour of the more popular add-ins that are so favoured by the Department, such as social deprivation. Those elements have been milked to good effect in some schools.

Finally, there is the obvious point that the single greatest gainer by far in every section is the grant-maintained integrated (GMI) school. Is it not amazing that that sector is the one favoured by the Minister? Is it not also amazing that the new common formula helps those that the Minister is biased towards? For example, if you take large primary schools with low free school meals (FSM) the grant maintained integrated school is a massive £100,000 better off. If you take large secondary schools with low FSM, some of the most efficient will be worse off, but the one that gains most is the GMI — by a massive £300,000. That tells us everything.

The long-term impact of this new proposal will be to compound the state that education is now in. Any common base that exists soon loses its commonality once you start to add in a whole host of other data. The result will be that those elements that attract extra funding will, in time, be used by schools to get extra funding. That will inevitably mean that schools that cannot use those elements are discriminated against. Therefore instead of being reversed, the current trend will be enhanced.

We are witnessing the impact of a policy for which one child is worth more than another. It is therefore in a school’s interest to concentrate on those who are worth more financially than the rest. That is grossly unfair, yet it is the policy now favoured by the Minister.

While the debate on funding will be taken up by many, it is essential that all those matters are given exposure, otherwise we will have a result where only the favoured ideas get mentioned. I implore all those involved in education to study this document very carefully. The implications are far-reaching. Equally, I would expect the Department to be flexible if the time limit has to be extended to facilitate a full response.

Roy Beggs (UUP, East Antrim)

I want to register an interest in this subject, first, as a parent of primary-school-age children, and secondly, as a parent-governor of my local primary school. As others have stated, there are severe pressures on the primary school sector. Many are concerned that they currently have an inadequate budget, and that needs to be addressed.

Of particular concern to me, as a member of the Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment Committee, is the large number of adults who have been through primary and secondary school but who still do not have basic educational skills. Some were failed at primary school; they struggled through the secondary school system, and eventually they came out without the education that we all would like them to have. It is important that these failings are picked up and addressed at the earliest possible level so that people’s formative years in education are to their best advantage and to the best advantage of the entire community and the economy of Northern Ireland. Therefore I support additional funding for the primary school sector.

Another issue that I feel strongly about is equality. In this document we see the Irish language being set out for special treatment. That is not equality. That is creating inequality in our society. Current figures are proposing a sum of £100 per pupil to assist the development of the curriculum and an additional £25 per pupil. In a classroom of 30 pupils, that could mean an additional £3,750. The reality in existing primary schools is that they are running at a deficit or are on the breadline, through no fault of their own. They find that they are struggling to survive; they have no money whatsoever for the purchase of additional books and equipment. It is essential that this sort of thing does not happen, for it creates inequalities in society.

It is important that people have a choice in how and where they are educated. Let that be reflected in a fair system that is applied to everyone equally. Inequalities should be removed, not created.

In smaller schools in the primary school sector, and in the smaller rural schools, teaching salaries make up a vast proportion of the budget given over for local administration. However, through no fault of the school or the governors, as teachers move up the scale — through age, experience, additional training or points — their wages increase. As a result of a teacher’s simply remaining at a school for a longer period, less of a budget is available for books and equipment. Surely that is wrong and needs to be addressed.

Mrs Carson asked about how we can improve the educational system in Northern Ireland, how we need to address the bureaucracy created over the years as well as the amount of money spent and the amount of duplication that occurs in the various structures developed. We have education and library boards, the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE) and the CCMS. Do we really need such duplication of services? An integrated approach to managing all schools would be better as it would ensure that the maximum amount of funding reaches our pupils.

The money should be spent on our children so that they receive the maximum amount of funding and benefit during the formative years of their education, both at primary and secondary school. We should not, for political or other reasons, allow money to be wasted, duplicated or spent through bureaucratic structures, which result in a degree of social engineering and which inhibit integration in our society.

I endorse the concept of equality and a single system of ensuring equality of funding to our schools, but I do not see that in the report. There may be some good things in the report, but work still needs to be done. My colleagues in the Committee will continue to press those points so that a fair system of equality can develop in Northern Ireland.

Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

A LeasCheann Comhairle, I apologise to Mr Beggs for leaving the Chamber during his speech.

I am grateful to all Members who contributed to the debate. It has been important and has served to reinforce the importance attached by the Assembly to the commonality of school funding. A large number of substantive matters were raised in the debate. Given the time constraints, I will deal with as many points as possible.

Mr Kennedy raised the issue of the consultation period. The deadline of 29 June effectively allows schools three months to respond, which is substantially in excess of the standard eight-week period for consultations. Briefing conferences are being held at the end of April in each board area to explain and clarify the proposals to schools and chairmen of boards of governors and to assist them in framing responses.

Response forms, allowing for tick-box responses and further written comments if desired, have been sent to all recipients of the document to facilitate matters. Four schools have already responded.

Those measures should help ensure that schools can meet the timescale. The school summer break dictates the end of June deadline, as does the need to allow sufficient time to consider the responses to consultation and to discuss any revised proposals with the Education Committee and the Executive before they are finalised. Adequate time must also be allowed for making the necessary changes to operational arrangements in the Department and the boards to ensure the smooth implementation of a common formula in April 2002.

Schools are the key constituents. At a meeting of around 250 principals from the South Eastern Education Library Board area today no mention was made of the consultation period’s being too short. The consultation period is manageable if we work at it.

Danny Kennedy, Barry McElduff, Joan Carson and some other Members raised the matter of the Irish- medium schools and units. I am satisfied that the proposals in the document are fair and equitable. Irish-medium schools and units have significant additional costs associated with their particular type of provision, and the formula must take them into account. The approach is in full accord with the principles under which the formula was developed that provide for funding according to relative need. Irish-medium schools and units do not have access to the same range of curriculum materials as other schools. At Key Stage 2, Irish-medium primary schools and units must teach English, so they carry an additional curricular requirement to English-medium schools. To fulfil this demand it is proposed that Irish-medium schools and units will receive additional help to meet the cost of teachers’ time spent on developing curriculum materials and delivering an additional subject at Key Stage 2.

Irish-medium units are small; they have an intake of around nine to 10 pupils a year. They operate as discrete units under the management arrangements of host English-medium schools. They face the same problems as small schools in that they must provide the full curriculum for pupils within the limited budget generated by their small enrolment. The help proposed for Irish-medium schools is along similar lines to that proposed for small schools. The help is, however, slightly less generous in recognition of the fact that the units operate under the management framework of host schools.

Monica McWilliams, Danny Kennedy, Tommy Gallagher, Billy Hutchinson, Sammy Wilson and Joan Carson raised the question of teachers’ salaries. The problem of above-average salary costs is most evident in small schools — mainly primary schools. All LMS formulae contain a teacher’s salary protection factor that helps to compensate schools for these extra costs. Above-average teaching costs are unavoidable in some schools. However, there is evidence that, in some cases, variations are due in part to the decisions of boards of governors in determining the structure of the schools through the awarding of responsibility points for teachers and increased salaries for principals and vice-principals. Removing teachers’ salaries from the LMS would bring its future into question, as teacher costs comprise 80% of a school’s budget. A centralised model for determining and allocating staff would be required, and flexibility to determine staffing at school level would be lost.

Danny Kennedy (UUP, Newry and Armagh)

Will the Minister give way?

Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

I am told that, as Minister, I have only 20 minutes, but I will gladly give way.

Danny Kennedy (UUP, Newry and Armagh)

Does the Minister accept that if the document is to be truly consultative and issues are to be dealt with in a proper manner, he and his Department should leave themselves open to the suggestion that actual teacher costs rather than average teacher costs should be met? He seems to be dismissing that out of hand from the Dispatch Box at the very outset of the consultative process.

Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

The document proposes an extension to the teacher’s salary protection factor so that more schools are included; that will alleviate the problem for schools that are most affected. Views have been invited on all of these matters and on whether teachers’ salaries should remain with the LMS. This is an opportunity for people to make an impact on the proposals that have been made, and it is vital that people contribute in a positive way. The opportunity for that is there.

Tommy Gallagher asked what is meant by similar funding for similar schools when all schools are different.

The formula allocates funding for those factors that significantly increase the need for expenditure in schools. For example, the factors could be the number and age of pupils, the premises or educational and social needs. Similar schools would be those that share similar circumstances under these factors. Under the common formula such schools will receive similar funding.

Tommy Gallagher also raised the matter of the aggregated schools budget (ASB). Our current policy is to maximise the level of funding to the classroom. If the resources to be distributed by the common formula were to be derived from a simple summing of the current ASBs for the education and library boards, the grant-maintained integrated sector and the voluntary grammar sector, it would not achieve the key educational objective of maximising the delivery of resources to the classroom.

It would also be unfair to those education and library boards that have made the greatest efforts to increase delegation, as it would redistribute the additional funding they have made available across all boards. As a result, schools in those board areas that currently have high levels of delegation would lose funding, while those in board areas with lower levels of delegation would gain.

Therefore I intend to discuss with boards how to bring levels of delegation to a more consistently higher level. This will require a realignment of budgets within boards and may involve some hard decisions. If the level of funding in all boards were raised to the level of the highest funding board, the ASB would increase by around £15 million. This represents the high ASB option set out in the consultation document.

Under the high ASB option, 88% of all schools would gain – the nursery, primary, post-primary sectors, as well as school sectors of all management types. The high ASB option will benefit all parts of the education system and will deliver substantially more resources to the classroom. I will be working with the boards and our other education partners towards this outcome.

Gerry McHugh raised the issue of the condition of school buildings and energy costs. The data required to construct such an element in the premises factor is not available, although it may be provided by the schools estate database when it is operational. There is also the difficulty that the inclusion of such elements in the premises factor could actually serve as a disincentive to schools to maintain property or adopt energy efficient practices. However, we have sought the views of schools on this important issue, and we will consider it again when the schools estate database is fully operational.

Oliver Gibson, Eileen Bell, Billy Hutchinson and Sammy Wilson raised, in varying degrees, the whole issue of free school meals as a TSN indicator. There is extensive research, both local and international, which demonstrates a link between entitlement to free school meals and social disadvantage. The free-school-meals entitlement is a good measure of social disadvantage, and the research is readily available, easily updated and effectively avoids the postcode-related problems associated with population census indicators such as the Robson index.

Research has also clearly demonstrated that children from socially disadvantaged circumstances are more likely to lack motivation to learn; they exhibit behavioural and attendance problems, have low educational attainment, leave school early, and become unemployed. Schools incur additional costs in meeting the needs of those pupils through pastoral care programmes, liasing with external agencies, additional teacher support, and so on. Therefore I am satisfied that free school meals should continue to be used as an indicator of social disadvantage and that schools should receive an element of funding to reflect the incidence of such pupils.

The proposals in the document are to include educational indicators — Key Stage 2 results — alongside entitlement to free school meals in a TSN indicator. That will direct TSN resources more accurately to schools with pupils in need. In particular, the revised indicator will target more effectively schools with pupils who are not socially disadvantaged but are, nevertheless, performing below the expected level for their age. That will address a long-standing criticism of the current TSN arrangements in the LMS and will be widely welcomed.

Oliver Gibson talked about responses from the boards. I am happy to copy responses from the boards — the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, the Governing Bodies Association, the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta — to the Education Committee and also to education associations and unions. I am happy to provide analyses of responses.

Mrs Eileen Bell asked about the targeting social need proposals in the document. Those proposals will pick up pupils who do not currently attract specific funding, including pupils who are not socially disadvantaged but are low achievers. Such pupils will attract funding under the revised special educational needs proposals in the TSN factor.

Transitional funding arrangements will be an integral part of the formula. The Department of Education will ensure that boards are allocated sufficient funding to meet transitional funding needs. Mrs Bell also spoke about the need for training. The introduction of the common formula has no implications for the role of boards of governors, and no specific training is required. There are mechanisms involving the boards and the Department for the training of governors in financial management, which will continue.

Mrs Eileen Bell and Ms Monica McWilliams raised the issue of age-weighted pupil units (AWPU) and the need for a regular review. I can confirm that the AWPU factor — and other factors in the formula — will be subject to regular review.

Mr Billy Hutchinson mentioned vandalism. The cost of vandalism is normally met through additional funding from the boards’ contingency funds. I share the Member’s concerns at the cost of vandalism and agree that those resources could be put to good use elsewhere in schools. Mr Hutchinson also referred to sport. There is a proposal for specific funding for sport, and the schools themselves will decide how to spend the money. That will give all pupils the opportunity to benefit from access to the sports curriculum.

Several Members were concerned that the consultation coincided with the post-primary and curriculum reviews. The common formula will have to take account of any changes arising from those reviews. The fact that schools will be funded on a common basis should assist in the implementation of any further changes that may arise from those reviews, as changes will be required to just one common formula, rather than to seven formulae, as at present.

Ms Monica McWilliams and Mrs Joan Carson raised the issue of a review of education administration. That can be taken forward properly only in the context of a wider review of local administration, and we have all heard much about that recently. The Executive are dealing with that issue, and, no doubt, that review will have implications not just for education, but for many other Departments.

Monica McWilliams asked about the involvement of Coopers & Lybrand. It was part of a wider process of identifying and analysing the key issues, and we were able to get access to consultants with extensive experience of school funding in England, Scotland, Wales and beyond. That was more cost-effective than having the Department of Education undertake the research in-house. Ms McWilliams also spoke about the views of teachers, which, of course, should be taken into account. The views of teachers and boards of governors are absolutely critical, and they will be carefully considered. As I said, briefing conferences are being held in each board area to explain the proposals to principals and chairs of boards of governors. One took place today, and it was very successful. Those conferences will help teachers to understand the proposals and make their responses.

Ms McWilliams also raised the issue of private finance initiative schools. With regard to recurrent funding under the local management of schools formula, there is no difference between a PFI school and one provided under traditional arrangements. Each type of school will have to meet expenditure on running costs — the PFI schools by means of a unitary payment, and others through meeting the cost of individual items. Both must meet that cost from their LMS allocation.

Mr Sammy Wilson asked why the LMS issue was brought to the House in this matter. We considered that it was important to give Members an early opportunity to discuss such an important issue. Mr Wilson also asked why proposals were changed after a meeting with the Education Committee.

We were very anxious to meet with the Education Committee and to listen to its views. We were pleased to be able to take many of the views expressed by the Committee on board in the final consultation document.

Billy Hutchinson and Sammy Wilson also raised the issue of the impact of all of that on the Belfast Education and Library Board if, for example, the aggregated schools budget were low, and we were dealing with the low model. I sometimes thought that Mr S Wilson was talking about that. My clear objective is to move towards the high ASB model, which is based on all boards moving to the highest level of funding. That highlights the need to increase the size of the ASB to ensure that as many schools and sectors as possible can win.

Sammy Wilson also raised a number of other issues about the Education Committee. He talked about giving more money to the maintained sector. Proposals are designed to meet educational need in all schools without fear or favour, regardless of the sector in which they may be located. The import of the proposals on the high or low ASB option is to move more resources into the controlled sector — around 2·3% — than into the maintained sector — 2·1%.

In terms of TSN changes, the change in the balance of funding between social deprivation and special education need (SEN) in the document, compared to the current position in the LMS formula, is to allocate more money under SEN and less under social deprivation. The proposals will, for the first time, direct funding to children performing below the expected level for their age and who are not disadvantaged, as well as those who are.

Ken Robinson mentioned the publications that were produced. The document was produced in Irish to meet the needs of Irish-medium schools. There are currently 10 grant-aided Irish-medium schools, nine of which are primary, one post-primary, and five Irish-medium units. There are currently no Ulster-Scots schools in the North, hence it was not considered necessary to produce the document in the Ulster-Scots language.

People should not be under any illusions about where I am coming from. I am only too willing, and I will be glad, if the demand is there, to give whatever possible support my Department can to people who are involved in Ulster-Scots and who wish to promote the language educationally. The document is also available in large print and on audio cassette on request. It can be accessed on the Department’s Internet site.

Mr Ken Robinson also said that not enough is being spent on books. I secured £1·5 million last year for reading materials for primary schools. I secured £14·7 million last year and £20·4 million this year that went directly to schools for whatever they chose to spend it on, including books. Of course, we will continue to seek additional funding for schools. That has always been my objective.

Mr Dallat asked from where the £15 million is coming, and whether it will mean cutbacks in the boards. The document envisages a sum of up to £15 million being added to delegated budgets. Under current arrangements, boards are allowed to reflect their own policies and priorities in determining their various budgets. That has led to variations in the level of school funding between boards. Commonality in delegated funding will also require greater commonality among boards and other areas of school funding. The means by which that realignment is to be implemented and the implications for each board will be the subject of further discussions between my Department and the boards over the next few months. Hard decisions may have to be taken, but it is vital that priority be given to directing funds to the classroom.

Mrs Carson raised the issue of funding for preparatory departments. Those schools have always been funded at a lower rate. Admission to a preparatory department is based on the ability of parents to pay the fees. The lower rate of grant reflects that feature.

The Member also raised the issue of the exclusion of pupils in Irish-medium and special units from the pupil count in relation to the small schools factor. That serves to put more money into the small schools, because the lower the pupil count, the greater the amount received under the small schools factor.

Mr ONeill mentioned LMS. It is not intended that schools should run as a business, and the Assembly accepts that. The intention is that resources should be delegated to a lower level, to those with power to make local decisions. Research conducted by the University of Ulster in 1997 revealed that most school principals welcomed the freedom to determine their own priorities, and only a few wanted the LMS to be abolished. Mr ONeill also talked about the £15 million reduction, and we have dealt with that matter.

At present, 5% of the total schools’ recurrent budget is top-sliced to target social need, and I intend to increase that amount. Moreover, it is important to understand that that 5% under the LMS formula is only one element among a wide range of TSN-related programmes supported by my Department. These include the school support programme; the group 1 schools initiative; the special educational needs code of practice; education outside school; support for travellers and children with English as an additional language; and the targeting of pre-school education expansion programme.

With school budgets under continued pressure, the additional £4 million that is being put into TSN — which represents a 10% increase — is significant. I am committed to allocating more resources to target social need if that is necessary, or if the Executive make additional resources available. I have not made a final decision about that or any of the other matters dealt with in the consultation document. I will listen carefully to any proposal on any of those matters.

In closing, a LeasCheann Comhairle, I commend the House on the quality of the debate. It demonstrates that locally elected politicians are capable of debating the issues that concern us in a rational and informed manner. The introduction of a common LMS funding formula for schools is about equity of funding, greater delegation of funding, and giving priority to the classroom. Above all, it is about helping to raise educational standards for all our children by ensuring that resources are directed where they are needed most — to the classroom. The proposals in the consultation document will achieve this.

I stress that I am willing to consider alternative suggestions or approaches. I encourage everyone to respond to the consultation document. This is a genuine consultation, and everyone’s view will be carefully considered before final decisions are taken on a common funding formula. Go raibh maith agat.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That this Assembly notes the publication of the consultative document and the intention to introduce a common formula for funding schools.

Motion made:

That the Assembly do now adjourn — [Madam Deputy Speaker]

Provision of Medical and Health Facilities for the Mourne Area

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I appreciate the opportunity to address the issue of provision — or lack of provision — of an integrated medical and health facility in the Kilkeel and Mourne area.

The people of the Mournes have waited an unacceptably long time for the provision of a new integrated modern health facility to replace the old Mourne Hospital. That hospital was closed five years ago, in October 1996, by the then Minister of Health, Malcom Moss. Mr Moss stated that the hospital would be replaced by a

"comprehensive range of services"

and that the hospital would not close until such a package of measures was in place. A few months later the Southern Health Board, at one of its meetings, appointed — and I read from their minutes —

"a short life project team…to ensure the smooth transition from the current service pattern to that which the board wishes to purchase."

That short-life team has now existed for five to six years.

So far, the services that were to be provided have been provided partially, in a scattered locality, and certainly not in a new integrated health facility as was envisaged. Those who followed the problem realised that procrastination had reigned on this issue in the Newry and Mourne Health & Social Services Trust, which presented various business cases to the Department of Health only to be told that further amendments would be required before the outline business case could be approved. That was in the context of the old Mourne Hospital’s not being closed until all the new provisions were in place. So much for ministerial edicts. However, I hope to exclude the current Minister from such criticism.

(Madam Deputy Speaker [Ms Morrice] in the Chair)

The constituent parts of the business case for the integrated health facility in Kilkeel have also varied over the years. There is a long and difficult history to the provision of these facilities in a new-build, all-purpose facility. As far back as 1988, the old Mourne Hospital was threatened with closure. That was vociferously opposed by the local community, culminating in a very strong and representative campaign in the five-year period from 1991 to 1996. The ministerial death sentence was passed on 25 October 1996. That older committee did not survive that decision, not because of a lack of enthusiasm or commitment, but because certain other extraneous legal matters brought it to an abrupt and unfortunate end.

Since then, the people of the Mournes have been without access to a proper integrated medical facility. The ministerial statement of 25 October 1996, which is the base from which I start, included provision for £700,000 in additional funding for community services. However, I have found it extremely difficult to identify where that £700,000 additional funding was spent on community services.

The Health Minister at that time also gave a commitment that

"the board will continue discussions with the interested parties on potential for a new integrated primary health care centre in Kilkeel and will invite interested parties to develop and submit proposals for the provision of nursing and specialised services for the elderly and the mentally infirm".

The Minister, in the same letter, also stated that the trust

"can now proceed with the implementation of the package of services for the area without further delay".

That was five years ago.

The Southern Health and Social Services Board continues to have discussions with the trust and the trust with the GPs and with the Department, yet we still have no sense of the original intent being implemented — of the integrated care centre.

During the campaign for the provision of the centre, many meetings were held. There were meetings with the Newry and Mourne Health & Social Services Trust, the Southern Health and Social Services Board and various Ministers of Health and Social Services. In fact, I cannot but reflect on the number of meetings, letters, and delegations with various Ministers — Richard Needham, Jeremy Hanley, the late Baroness Denton, Malcolm Moss, Tony Worthington, John McFall and George Howarth. They are all possessors of part of this history without any real delivery. I am hoping that that is the end of the Ministers who will not deliver on this issue.

During that whole campaign the minimum requirement was that which was agreed by the Department, the board, the trust, Newry and Mourne District Council, the community representatives and the public elected representatives.

I will rehearse the details briefly, because I want to compare them with the position today. The integrated proposal included the following: a 28-bed in-patient hospital in Kilkeel on a new site; access to 26 private nursing beds; the provision of 20 statutory nursing beds, which, presumably, were to be at Slieve Roe House or thereabouts; the provision of 30 day-care places at the same venue or elsewhere; the retention of the casualty unit, which was to be combined with the treatment room in the new facility; the retention of the health centre with out-patient services and other services such as chiropody and speech therapy; and an enhanced physiotherapy unit with a brand new occupational therapy unit, including out-patient facilities. There was also a commitment to retain the ambulance station.

All those services, apart from the last, were to be provided on a newly built integrated primary care facility. However, five years on, I do not see any sign of that happening. Where is the commitment, and where is the plan that was submitted by the trust? I know that it has submitted an outline business plan, and I am now aware of its contents. I want to measure the contents of that plan against the undertakings and agreements that were made about all those facilities. The proposals were also formally agreed with a delegation from Newry and Mourne District Council that I took to meet the Minister in February 1997.

I have wondered whether I should proceed with the Adjournment debate. Only last week, I convened a meeting with Kilkeel Community Association, Newry and Mourne Health and Social Services Trust and Newry and Mourne District Council to try to understand their positions. There have been so many changes to the proposals and in people’s attitudes to them that I wanted to pin everything down carefully. Kilkeel Community Association recently made a valiant attempt to provide a neutral venue based on the same campus as the integrated primary care health clinic, which, in fact, could have been one of the anchor tenants.

The trust, the boards and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety are going ahead with the business case, which, I hope, will deliver the primary necessities that I listed. I also hope that a site will be made available to the Kilkeel Community Association to provide a venue for community activities on that site or adjacent to it. I hope that the negotiations will be successful and that the funding for both aspects will be taken into account.

Newry and Mourne Health and Social Services Trust submitted another revised outline business case to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety on 30 March 2001. I do not expect the Minister to comment on an outline business case that has been so recently submitted, but many other business cases were submitted before that. I would like to know the broad content of the outline business case and how it compares with the benchmarks that were laid down by the public representatives, the communities, the boards, the trust and the Department in October 1996.

The outline business plan is supported fully by the five general practitioners in the area. There was a difficulty in agreeing requirements with them, as these changed from time to time depending on whom one was talking to. The business plan also has the support of Mourne councillors.

The need for an integrated primary healthcare facility is crucially important to people in the Mourne area. That is especially the case when one considers that five years ago that community was promised such an accessible primary healthcare facility.

The community is the most important aspect. However, there is a huge influx of visitors to the Mourne area — up until now anyway. A quarter of a million people walk from peak to peak each year, if they are active. If they are not, they lie on the sunny beaches in south Down absorbing the "Costa del Sol" atmosphere of Ireland. They enjoy the highlands, woodlands, lakes and seaside. It is important for those facilities to be available if we are to have credibility as an area that takes care of its visitors.

The population of Newry and Mourne is projected to increase by 12%, which is the second highest population increase in Northern Ireland. That increase is forecast for the years 1998 to 2013. Although there are 15 years in which to achieve this, it is a very high population increase nonetheless. Those are not my figures; they are the official October 2000 statistics from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. We have a very healthy population in the Mournes as far as creating a new generation is concerned. The matter of add-on facilities over and above those envisaged five or six years ago must also be addressed.

Those things can only be addressed by good partnership and if there is a good outcome from the negotiations between the trust, the board, the Department and the Minister. I hope that that will be done very quickly and very well. I have dozens of quotes from dozens of letters from dozens of Ministers as far back as August 1997. However, one quote from the management executive was that

"significant progress could be made in developing what will undoubtedly be a first-class facility to support the local primary care services".

We are at the negotiation stage once again, but I hope that in those negotiations the benchmarks laid down and agreed by all concerned some years ago will now be part of the outline business plan.

I do not know what is in the business plan. I hope that the Minister will tell us or make some reference to it today, because a decision is needed urgently. The people of the Mourne and Kilkeel area have, by this delay, earned priority for delivery of a primary healthcare facility because they have waited patiently for so long. It is a matter of great urgency, and for that reason the Minister and the Department should ensure that the capital funding required for the primary healthcare unit is made readily available. I hope that I will not hear that funding will be provided after a process of private financial inquiries. We all know that that is a dead end as far as hospital provision and care provision in Northern Ireland are concerned.

The people of Newry and Mourne have waited for a long time. They now have a business plan. I hope that the Minister will respond quickly and positively to it. I hope she will make the Department deliver the promises it gave to the people and make the money available to the trust and the board to enable those promises to be rapidly and fully undertaken.

I have no doubt that other Members, particularly those from the south Down area, will support that concept for the people there.

Danny Kennedy (UUP, Newry and Armagh)

I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this important debate and warmly congratulate and commend Mr McGrady for bringing it to the attention of the Assembly. Lest anyone question my right to participate, Members will be aware that I am a member of Newry and Mourne District Council and have an interest there. I also want to make representations on behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party. Ministerial business has, unfortunately, kept my party Colleague, Mr Nesbitt, from the House today. Nonetheless, he is mindful of the health needs in his constituency of South Down and in the Mourne area. I take a broader view of things in the Newry and Mourne council district.

The historical context has already been very well covered by Mr McGrady. Although Mourne Hospital was not in ideal shape, it at least provided local services to local people, and there was always an expectation that it would, at some stage, be upgraded. Based on the pledges and promises made by Ministers and others in control of health at that time, the expectation locally was that a new hospital or centre would be built to give proper and adequate healthcare. It is a matter of great regret that those promises were never kept and that no such hospital materialised.

I have considerable knowledge of the area. Newry and Mourne is strange in some ways. Once you go through the mountains, you go into new territory — politically, socially and, perhaps, in other ways too. It is largely rural, and it is far-flung, which is another important reason for having a hospital of some kind there. Considerable distances are involved, and the community is spread throughout small towns, hamlets and little villages in the coastal area. Minor roads are not in prime condition, although the roads of South Down are in a more satisfactory condition than those in my constituency of South Armagh. That, however, is a separate argument. In a far-flung rural area the important point is that hospital services and medical provision are essential. I certainly want to see such provision restored to Mourne.

Mr McGrady said that this area is a significant holiday destination. I am very happy to tell the House that only last week I used it as a resort. There was not much sun, but many of the great features we have come to expect were just as Mr McGrady said. To be able to cater for that increase in population at seasonal times as well as for accidents, emergencies and people who become unwell or need medical treatment is another valid reason for provision in the Mourne area.

I want to hear a clear, outlined commitment from the Minister that she will give sympathetic consideration to any request from the Newry and Mourne Trust to fund a hospital or medical facility in Mourne. That will right a very great wrong and make good promises that her predecessors from other Administrations gave but never brought to reality.

I am happy to add my support to Mr McGrady’s motion.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I congratulate Mr McGrady for tabling this motion. In saying that, it needs to go further. It needs to go right across the board in relation to health and social services, taking in not only Kilkeel, but also Newry and Mourne and south Down. I welcome the business plan proposed by the Kilkeel Trust to the Department and hope that it takes that plan on board and also that it provides proper capital funding to help update the health service right across Newry and Mourne and south Down; that is badly needed in that area.

The Southern Health and Social Services Board need to fill the following posts in Daisy Hill Hospital immediately — a consultant surgeon to replace the one who left some months ago, a respiratory consultant and a new consultant in accident and emergency. Those posts will significantly strengthen the hospital’s resources. While I welcome the acquisition of a new CT scanner by Daisy Hill Hospital and the appointment of an additional consultant radiologist, there is also the need to strengthen cardiology with a new consultant in that department. I wish to see the board strengthen the hospital in order to provide a first-class service to the people of Newry and Mourne.

I also want to see improved primary-care services. We need better cover for the whole of Newry and Mourne and the Down District Council area. The health board must review its arrangements and ensure that all GPs are properly involved in well-resourced out-of-hours services which provide first-class care to all our people. We need better community service, which is targeted to people’s requirements that will support them in their homes. We need to ensure that money is invested in health and personal services.

A very small percentage of our wealth is spent on essential services. We must aim to increase that investment and make sure that our public services are of a high quality. The Executive need to support the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and make sure that she has sufficient resources to invest so that she and her Department can start to tackle the causes of ill health.

The opportunity for the development of an all-Ireland service must not be overlooked. Such a policy would provide something from which all could benefit, especially in Newry and Mourne where we are so close to the border. We have already seen the benefits of cross-border renal services. Similar benefits could be reaped right across the whole range of acute and primary care services. However, that would require proper integrated planning and a determination to cut through red tape and bureaucracy.

I want to see a new, properly equipped hospital in Downpatrick. Money must be found to provide that service, which is so desperately needed by people who are gutted about what has happened to their hospital. I am asking for a firm date on which the shape of those services will be made public, and a date on which money to build these services will be made available.

I want to highlight something that I feel very strongly about — the plight of the disabled in south Down and Newry and Mourne. A heavy burden of red tape is placed on their shoulders by inadequate procedures for applying for services to which they are entitled. The changes set up in November 2000 by the Housing Executive and the housing associations resulted in a unified housing selection scheme. The scheme awards points for housing. Social well-being assessments should have brought about important changes to disabled people and made their needs a priority.

This area is determined by the health and social services boards, but is it working effectively? In my opinion it is not. The scheme is too complex and needs continuous monitoring. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s renovation grants scheme —

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not like to interrupt a debate on such a serious issue, but I suspect that the Member has drifted somewhat from the future of primary care in Kilkeel and Mourne Hospital. I have been listening with interest, but this is not directly relevant to the matter being discussed.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I was trying to work out the geographical spread of the points that Mr Murphy was making. Will he please keep his comments to the subject of the Adjournment debate in hand.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. The matter under discussion is health service provision in Newry and Mourne, not specifically primary care in Newry and Mourne, and that is what I am speaking about.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

We are not talking about Newry and Mourne in this Adjournment debate. The debate is on the provision of medical and health facilities in the Mourne area alone.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, but that applies to what I am dealing with — health and social services provision in the Mourne area. I am speaking about south Down and Newry and Mourne. Mourne covers a big area. It is not specific to the Kilkeel area alone; it is a massive area, and the Member should be aware of that. He is, after all, a representative of that area.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Please continue.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

As I said, the area is determined by the health and social service boards, and I asked if it is working effectively. It is not. The scheme is too complex and needs continual monitoring. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s renovation grant scheme recognises the needs of disabled people. It funds the adaptation of properties and offers a design service, grants, finance and advice to elderly and disabled people.

Article 52 of the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 on the approval of applications for certain facilities for the disabled is the most important provision. It provides assistance to people in four areas, namely, enabling access to and around the home; facilitating the preparation of food and cooking by a disabled occupant; improving the heating system or providing a suitable one; and making it easier for a person to use sources of heat, light and power in the house.

The grant is mandatory. The procedure laid down in the 1992 Order begins when the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) receives an enquiry from a disabled person. Red tape then comes into operation. Two NIHE officers deal with grants. The welfare officer responds to public sector enquiries, and the grants manager deals with private-sector applicants. The NIHE will then ask the local health trust’s occupational therapy department to carry out an assessment of a disabled person’s needs for adaptation.

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am becoming increasingly concerned about the drift of the Member’s contribution. Are we saying that we can raise any subject whatsoever under health and social services, provided that it affects somebody in the Mourne area? Are we specifically dealing with primary healthcare provision in the Mourne area? If we set that precedent this afternoon, can I do any amount of pontificating on any issue provided that it affects someone relevant to that debate?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. The debate is not specifically on primary healthcare. This is in order.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

Go raibh maith agat. The assessment by the occupational therapist determines the length of time that a disabled person will have to wait to have work carried out. The recommendations will also determine whether adaptations are necessary. If the decision is not favourable, the disabled person must seek an independent assessor to review his or her case.

However, occupational therapists are charged under section 2(e) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 to have regard to the provision of assistance for that person in arranging adaptation work in the home, or the provision of any additional facilities designed to secure the person’s greater safety, comfort or convenience — [Interruption].

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt my Colleague. My explicit purpose in this debate was to ensure that a primary healthcare facility, a care centre in Kilkeel that was promised in 1996, was built. That is the subject of the debate. While the Member’s comments would be legitimate in other debates, they are taking away from what I hoped would have been the focus — a ministerial reply on Kilkeel Hospital.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I accept that the point of order has been made. However, I stress that we are talking about the provision of medical and health facilities. That being the title of the Adjournment debate, it must be allowed to cover all areas that are considered to be medical and health facilities. You have specifically made the point concerning your reference in your opening remarks, but I will allow Mr Murphy to continue under the heading "medical facilities".

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

I must support what Mr McGrady has said. Mr Mick Murphy has not even related what he has been talking about to any specific problem in the Mourne area. He is talking about a general social services problem that is experienced throughout the Province. Are we allowed to wander throughout the Province rather than deal specifically with an actual issue?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I have already ruled on this subject. We are talking about the provision of medical and health facilities in the Mourne area.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

Go raibh maith agat. That section of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 places a legal obligation for the safety of the disabled in their homes on the health authority in the area. After those procedures are carried out, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive receives positive recommendations from the occupational therapists. The grant inspector visits the dwelling to determine its fitness. The process for a means test begins when the dwelling is passed as fit for grant aid. However, before that is done, the Housing Executive needs proof of legal ownership of the dwelling. Once proof is given, the application forms for the preliminary means test are sent out.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. Mr Murphy, you are straying into the area of grants and housing allocations. Keep as close to the subject of the debate as possible. There are others who want to speak.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

I understand what you are saying, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you must recognise that disabled people in the Newry and Mourne area and in south Down must go through a process involving the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Health Service to get these grants. Therefore the point that I am making is part and parcel of the proceedings.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I have allowed you to make those points. There have been too many points of order, and I want the Member to continue as briefly as possible. I accept that it is perfectly appropriate for you to talk about health facilities, but the area of grants and housing is beyond the remit of the debate.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

You are not allowing me to continue with my prepared speech on health and social services in the Newry and Mourne area. I must change and move on. Therefore you must give me a bit of time.

I ask that the health and social services board takes into consideration — even though Members do not seem to want to — the process that disabled people in Newry and Mourne and in south Down must go through to get proper health facilities in their homes — [Interruption].

I did not interrupt Mr McGrady, and I do not expect him to interrupt me. If he is not happy with what I have said, he can deal with it in his summing up.

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

The Minister sums up, not me.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

I stand corrected; the Minister will deal with it.

The Assembly must provide adequate funding for all elements of the system. We must meet the needs of those disabled people who wish to remain in their homes. Disabled people are not asking for special deals; they are demanding the right to equality and the quality of life to which they are entitled — and that the Assembly is required to provide — under the Good Friday Agreement. We have the means to streamline the bureaucracy into a straightforward working format. We must put it into action and get on with it. I have seen some of the bureaucracy working here today. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

Madam Deputy Speaker, your generosity knows no bounds. How can I say that without getting myself into bother? You have allowed Mr Murphy’s interpretation of the subject of the motion to stretch to its absolute limits. I hope that the next time that I am proposing an Adjournment motion that, Madam Deputy Speaker, you are in the Chair. I will be able to add some extraneous subjects that no doubt I would not normally be allowed to do. However, the subject, I believe, is writ narrow.

Mick Murphy (Sinn Féin, South Down)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The point is not what Mr Wells believes; it is what the person under the health system is entitled to.

Jim Wells (DUP, South Down)

The Adjournment motion is a very useful exercise. It allows Members to come to the House and to raise specific matters and issues of local concern in the presence of the Minister. The subject of the debate this afternoon is the stuff that Adjournment motions are made of. To some extent it devalues the whole process if Members wander down "by-path meadow". Therefore, I shall come directly to the subject of healthcare provision in the Mourne area, which is very much related to the lack of a proper integrated primary care facility in Kilkeel.

Kilkeel is an area that I have the privilege to represent. It is a wonderful place in many ways. Someone once said to me that Kilkeel men were not born, they were quarried. To some extent that explains their nature – they are rugged individuals who have made a living from fishing, quarrying and agriculture. Kilkeel is a unique community that has prospered over many years in a peripheral part of Northern Ireland. It has done very well for itself. It is a very proud community, but it is also very isolated. To get to Daisy Hill hospital, one must travel 20 miles along a road that is very inadequate in parts and that passes through Newry town, where there can be a bit of a bottleneck. If one considers that, one realises how difficult it is for people of the Mourne area to obtain primary healthcare.

If one travels in the other direction the nearest hospital is Downe Hospital, which, of course, has been very much under threat in recent years. Indeed with the closure of the Mourne Hospital and the potential loss of Downe Hospital, one was almost faced with a situation where one could draw a line from Newry to Dundonald and not one primary-care hospital would have been available to anyone living south of that line.

The people of the Mourne community feel very aggrieved by the decision to close their own hospital. It was closed in the face of promises that there would be a new unit provided. Mr McGrady said that those promises were not kept. That is why many people involved in the Downe Hospital campaign take a very jaundiced view of some of the promises that are being made to them.

If a fundamental mistake has been made – if you could call it that – it was the fact that Mourne Hospital was allowed to close before anything was arranged to replace it. In other words, the community groups should have said: "We will allow this hospital to close only when you have the alternative up and running."

The Southern Health and Social Services Board is an organisation with which I have frequent contact. They are under enormous financial pressures. I regularly have meetings with Eric Bowyer and his team, and at times, I worry where the board is going to get sufficient resources to continue to provide primary health care and social services in south Down and south Armagh and the Newry and Mourne area. They constantly have problems with resourcing, and the only way that there will be any movement towards replacing the service that was lost in Kilkeel is if the Department provides capital funding. There is absolutely no way that the board can find the money in its own resources to replace the unit that has been lost. I hope that the Minister will not take the opportunity this afternoon to trot out those horrible letters, PFI — private finance initiative. We have already seen that the private finance initiative does not work for primary healthcare in Northern Ireland. If this facility is going to be provided it has to be provided from departmental funds.

We cannot have the whole process delayed simply because we have to go through the sham of the private finance initiative. That is an expensive exercise that drains away much needed resources from the Health Service and proves what is obvious — it cannot be done. If it cannot be done on the scale of Downe Hospital, it certainly cannot be done in Mourne, which has a growing, vibrant and expanding community. Many new houses are being built in Kilkeel, but it is certain that there will never be the economies of scale to enable a PFI scheme to work there.

Rural hospitals are being considered under the Hayes review, but no matter what is decided, Kilkeel will remain out on a limb, too far away from the main sources of primary healthcare. Kilkeel was the part of south Down that was worst affected by the recent bad snowstorms. The whole area was entirely cut off for several days. It was not possible to drive, for instance, from Kilkeel to Newcastle; it was difficult to get past Killowen. That shows the isolated nature of the area and the need for adequate healthcare there.

We also have an influx of tourists, as Mr Kennedy mentioned. It does not look as though we are going to have a normal summer this year, but in a normal year Kilkeel can be a hub of activity, with tourists making their way to and from the Mournes. We also have the fishing industry, where serious injuries can readily occur because of its inherent dangers. There has been a proposal to remove the helicopter rescue service.

The people of Mourne rightly see themselves as being at the end of the queue when it comes to the provision of services. The promise to deliver a new integrated primary healthcare facility in Kilkeel has to be kept. The present buildings are well past their sell-by date; a new site has to be selected. If devolution is to mean anything in the Province it has to be accountable to local communities such as Kilkeel. It is absolutely essential that the Assembly honours the promises, even if they were made by previous Administrations that perhaps did not have the same political outlook as ourselves. Kilkeel deserves nothing less.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Two more Members wish to speak before the Minister will be asked to respond. I ask them to limit their statements to five minutes to give the Minister time to respond.

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I will try to abide by your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pity that we have lost so much time. However, what I wish to say can be said in a few minutes.

I compliment Eddie McGrady, who has been the Member of Parliament for South Down for some time. He has fought a long and difficult campaign to try to restore the necessary health services to the Mourne area. As he outlined in his presentation, that has been a remorseless dogfight. I hope and add to his wish that our present Minister will not be yet another Minister along those lines.

This is an issue of clear neglect — the Health Service for the people of the area has been neglected. We want that completely restored. We require the installation of an integrated healthcare service. As Mr Wells has already outlined, the community is a unique and isolated one, with major fishing, agriculture and tourism industries. All three provide opportunities for risks to health. We are not talking about acute services. We are talking about ordinary services to provide for the greater proportion of accidents. The need to have that in the Mourne area is very clear.

The area also has a poor road infrastructure.

I want to re-emphasise that, because Mr Kennedy must have had a glaze in his eyes when he was enjoying our tourist facilities. He must not have looked down at what he was travelling over. It is in a very poor state. All we need is a bit of inclement weather and many of the roads are difficult to pass. Accessibility is a serious problem.

I also represent the Members from South Down — they asked me to, and I have continued to do so — on the Donard Commissioning Group, which is a very successful commissioning group in the area. It covers the northern end of Mourne — the Annalong area. That has clearly indicated to me the need for support services in the Mourne area. Current and valued evidence is available as a result of focus groups studying local problems of healthcare and providing accurate and up-to-date information. That is available for examination if there is any doubt about identifying the need factor. I do not believe that there is — identifying need is not the problem. Making the financial commitment is the difficulty. I want to ensure that this is the last Minister who will have to deal with this problem and that she will leave us with a successful outcome.

P J Bradley (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I too pay tribute to Mr Eddie McGrady for bringing this Adjournment debate to the Chamber this evening. The great thing about the debate — although the Chamber is not packed — is that we are talking about all sections of the community. It goes right across all divides — from fishermen to farmers, and across differing religious and political beliefs. Everyone in the Mournes will be fully supportive of the comments made by the various Members so far.

We are speaking about let-down. In common with Mr Kennedy, I am a member of Newry and Mourne District Council. In 1996, we took the promises that were made to us as being sincere. Prior to that we had a very intensive campaign, led by the Mourne councillors. It was supported by Mr McGrady and probably every other recognised Kilkeel-based group in the Mournes. They drove it along for the provision, but it did not come. We took the promises made in 1996 at face value. We thought that they were sincere. While I cannot say we were bought off because we got nothing, we believed that what was on offer would eventually happen.

Danny Kennedy, Eddie McGrady and then Jim Wells came in on a seasonal note — they were speaking about the summertime situation. Jim Wells touched on the winter problems — winter problems at sea and on the roads. This year in particular the place was closed off for almost seven days. The three roads into it were impassable. The only other place where that happened was in the Outer Hebrides, and I do not think that it was acceptable there. It is certainly unique.

The Minister is still comparatively new to the job and to this case in particular. She will not fail to recognise from the research available to her to date that the Mournes urgently need a Kilkeel-based integrated medical health centre. Basic research will show that. The Minister will learn that very quickly if her homework is properly done. I again thank Eddie McGrady for bringing the issue forward, and I hope that we have advanced the cause of the people of the Mournes.

Bairbre de Brún (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Gabhaim mo bhuíochas leis an Uasal Mag Bhrádaigh as ceist thábhachtach seo soláthar sláinte agus chúram shóisialta do mhuintir cheantar Mhúirn a tharraingt anuas.

Tuigim go hiomlán na deacrachtaí atá ag muintir an cheantair, ag cuimhneamh ar an fhad atá le taisteal acu chun seirbhísí sláinte agus chun áiseanna cúraim shóisialta. Dearbhaím, áfach, go bhfuil mé tiomanta do chinntiú go bhfaigheann ár muintir uilig an cúram agus an chóireáil ardcháilíochta chéanna, cuma cá gcónaíonn siad.

I thank Mr McGrady for raising the important issue of the provision of health and social care for the people of the Mourne area. I fully appreciate the difficulties being faced by the people of the area, bearing in mind — as Members have stated — the distance that they have to travel to avail of many health and social care services and facilities. I assure Members that I am committed to ensuring that all of our people receive good quality care and treatment, regardless of where they live.

I know that the Southern Board and the Newry and Mourne Trust, which are responsible for commissioning and delivering services for the people of the Mourne area, have also clearly stated their commitment.

Mr McGrady will be aware that the provision of health and social care in Kilkeel and the Mournes has been under discussion locally for a number of years. He has outlined many of the twists and turns in those discussions. Several consultation documents have been published by the Southern Board and by Newry and Mourne Trust, which have engaged with the local population. Those resulted in a number of recommendations for provision of services, and some of those have been put in place. They include an increase in the number of nursing home places in the Kilkeel area, the provision of a minor injuries clinic at Brooklands Nursing Home in Kilkeel and investment in a range of community services across a number of programmes of care.

One of the outstanding elements of the programme is the development of a primary healthcare centre in Kilkeel. Potentially, that will provide a more integrated service between the local GPs and Newry and Mourne Trust and will enhance co-operation between the various services. The trust has been working on a business case for the development of integrated care in Kilkeel for some time. That has been ongoing since before the Executive was established.

Several factors, including changing local circumstances and the failure of the parties involved to reach a timely consensus on what was required, have also contributed to the lengthy delay in the trust’s bringing forward proposals for the Department’s consideration. In recent months the Department has emphasised the need for the trust and local GPs to reach a consensus on the way forward, which has come about recently. The trust’s business case for the development of a new primary care centre in Kilkeel involving the local GPs was finally received by the Department earlier this month. I can assure you that we take this very seriously.

The outline business case proposes to provide a new facility to deliver the range of services currently provided from the Kilkeel Health Centre and the professions allied to medicine (PAMS) and outpatient services now sited in the Mourne Hospital. Those include GPs, community nurses, health visitors, school nurses, speech therapy, psychotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, outpatient clinics, obstetrics, gynaecology, general surgery, general medicine, paediatrics, ophthalmology and psychiatry.

With regard to the funding for the business case, there are a number of cases for investment in health and personal social services. Newry and Mourne Trust has submitted a range of business cases to the Department — including this one — totalling £10 million. The level of resources available means that decisions on investment need to be based not only on merit, but also on priority. I cannot say today — and I am sure that Mr McGrady would not expect me to say today — what relative priority the new facility in Kilkeel will have.

The earlier versions of the business case, to which Mr McGrady referred, did not meet the guidelines that govern such investments. In addition, the proposed facility did not then have the support of the local GPs. That has now been secured. The business case now envisages an investment of £1·65 million. That needs to be fully tested — no more and no less than any other investment involving public money.

With regard to the neutral venue, Newry and Mourne Trust now wants to use the site for the new health centre. As a result, action on disposal of the site has been suspended until the trust’s proposals have been examined in detail. I am aware that, although the Kilkeel Community Association had hoped to acquire the site for the community centre, the trust is now working with Newry and Mourne District Council with a view to meeting the association to try to find an acceptable way forward for all parties. In taking the whole process forward, it is essential that all of the relevant players — Newry and Mourne Trust, the board, and the local GPs — work together to ensure a satisfactory outcome for the people of the Mourne area.

As for access, there are a number of ways in which that is being taken forward. Several reviews of services have been or are currently being undertaken through the capitation formula, for example, the ambulance service review and the acute hospitals review. There are incentive schemes for GPs to encourage practitioners to provide service in rural areas, but time does not permit me to give you the details of that.

In answer to Mr Mick Murphy’s questions about the consultant posts in Daisy Hill Hospital, I can confirm that the necessary resources have been made available to fund those posts, and I also understand that the recruitment advertisements for all posts mentioned will appear in the local press this week.

Both the grant schemes and the housing selection schemes are matters for the Housing Executive. The trust is involved for consultation only on the necessity and appropriateness of the proposed works and on decisions as to referral for occupational therapy assessment.

For the North overall, I have identified an additional 20 occupational therapists in the coming financial year. I have also approved implementation of the recommendations contained in the preliminary report of the joint Housing Executive and Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety on the review of the housing adaptation service, which is designed to improve occupational therapy response times.

The primary care services are vital for the people of the Mourne area, and I understand that they are the first points of contact for most people who need help from the health and social services. As Members will know, we have just concluded a major consultation exercise about the future arrangements for primary care, and we are in the process of carrying out an analysis of responses to that. I am fully aware of the excellent initiatives developed by the Donard Commissioning Group and other primary care pilot schemes, and we will be encouraging the involvement of local communities and service users in the planning and development of services.

In conclusion, I am aware of the health and social care needs of the people of the Mournes, and I am keen to resolve the issue of providing a new primary healthcare centre for the people in Kilkeel. I can assure Members that the business case for the health centre will be taken forward as quickly as possible.

Adjourned at 5.12 pm.