Education

‘Final steps’ to Education and Skills Authority

01_P-School-boys-doing-geog Legislation for the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) should result in its establishment by next April. Stephen Dineen sums up the planned changes.

Legislation for the Education and Skills Authority, promised since the days of direct rule, has been introduced in the Assembly. The new authority is due to be established by 1 April 2013.

Eight bodies’ functions, assets and liabilities are to be transferred: the five education and library boards, the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS), the boards’ Staff Commission and the Youth Council.

Welcoming the new legislation, Education Minister John O’Dowd said that, building on the work of the eight education bodies, the ESA “will reduce unnecessary expenditure on bureaucracy; will help disseminate good practice in our schools; will facilitate the advancement of shared education and will ultimately lead to improved educational outcomes for all children.”

While the ESA will focus on management and service delivery, the Department of Education will still determine policy. The authority will be responsible for area planning as well as providing training, advisory and support services for schools. It will also become the single employing authority of all staff in grant aided schools and will have the power to set guidelines for schools. The role of boards of governors, meanwhile, will be enshrined in legislation. School library services and the provision of educational and youth services and facilities will also be the responsibility of the authority.

While school governors will retain the right to set admissions criteria, an independent tribunal will resolve disputes over employment and management schemes between schools and the ESA.

The First Minister and deputy First Minister stated last November that “further consideration” should be given to the future of the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment and the Education and Training Inspectorate, however the bodies are being retained.

Efforts to establish the authority had been plagued by political disagreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP and fears that the main Protestant churches (transferors) would lose their influence. To allay these concerns, the ESA’s board will comprise:

  • eight church representatives i.e. four Catholic trustees and four transferors;
  • eight political representatives (in proportion to party strength in the Assembly, using the D’Hondt mechanism);
  • four representatives appointed by the Education Minister; and
  • a Chairperson appointed by the Minister.

Sectoral support bodies for the controlled and maintained sector will be established. The legislation contains provisions guaranteeing a role in the discharge of certain functions for sectoral support bodies. The support body for the controlled sector should be established in time for the ESA’s establishment (see text box).

The Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education and Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (the Irish-medium sector’s representative body) will be largely unaffected.

Boards will continue to employ and dismiss members of staff. Transfers, secondments or redeployment of teachers will only occur with the consent of the respective schools, boards of governors and teachers involved.

The Staff Commission, which was established in 1972, is charged with overseeing recruitment, training and employment conditions of board officers. The Youth Council develops youth policies and youth work practice. It also facilitates collaboration between youth organisations and the relevant sectors.

Alongside the delays, which included the referral of the draft Bill to the Attorney General, the cost of establishing the authority has risen. £13.8 million has been spent on the ESA project. Furthermore, £15.2 million was spent by the department on voluntary severance programmes for boards’ staff over two years (2010-2012). Morale within the boards has been widely reported to be low due to these changes and consequent pressures on staff.

The department’s savings delivery plan requires £40 million in reduced costs each financial year during this budgetary period, from management and administration and professional support services. The original business case for the ESA stated that £20 million a year would be saved in administrative savings.

Some efficiencies have already been achieved through common ICT platforms, a single finance system and centralised software licensing. The ESA implementation team has also conducted 16 workshops with staff across the education sector to consult and prepare them for developing regional service delivery models at an early stage.

Political differences over the proposed authority were illustrated in an Assembly debate initiated by Alliance’s Trevor Lunn during the last Assembly session. He questioned how anybody could still believe that the province would not benefit “in cost, efficiency and the education of our children with the installation of a single body” working “with the best of what we have and [to] reform or discard the rest”.

DUP MLA and Chair of the Assembly’s Education Committee Mervyn Storey said that the party’s difficulties with the initial Education Bill centred on the future role of transferors and the proposal to create a holding body for the controlled sector.

For the UUP’s Joanne Dobson, the influence of political and religious stakeholders must be protected throughout the rationalisation of the school system. The SDLP’s Conall McDevitt said that the cost of the project to date “is utterly destroying staff morale” and undermining public confidence.

Sinn Féin’s Phil Flanagan said that it was time to “move beyond discussions about establishing ESA and continue to focus on improving how we deliver education to our children and young people.”

The TUV, though, is opposed to the ESA’s establishment, particularly under a Sinn Féin Minister, as it would concentrate power “in the hands of the so-called ‘progressives’ who have driven the antitransfer and anti-academic agenda.”

Minister
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Department of Education
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Education and Skills Authority
?
Support bodies:
Controlled sector
Catholic maintained sector
Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (Irish medium)
Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education

Plans for controlled sectoral body take shape

A working group to establish a controlled schools’ sectoral support body was announced on 27 September, prior to the introduction of the Education Bill to the Assembly. This complements the existing sectoral bodies for Catholic maintained, Irish medium and integrated schools.

“The sectoral support body for controlled schools will play a vital role in our reformed education administration,” Education Minister John O’Dowd said, adding that it would provide “representation and challenge” to the Department of Education and the new Education and Skills Authority.

The group’s six members are Stephen Black (principal of Antrim Grammar School), Valerie Campbell (principal of Dungannon Primary School), David Canning (principal of Strabane Primary School), Uel McCrea (former principal of Ballyclare Secondary School) and two transferors’ representatives: Rev Trevor Gribben (Presbyterian) and Rev Ian Ellis (Church of Ireland).

DUP Education Spokesman Mervyn Storey welcomed the announcement and believed that its establishment will make sure that the ethos of controlled schools is “better shaped” and the influence of the main Protestant denominations will be exercised. The body is due to be in place in time for the launch of the ESA next April.

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