Northern Ireland Education Authority announces £200 million deficit days before school term starts

Days before children are due to return to classrooms across Northern Ireland, a massive education budget shortfall has been revealed.

The Education Authority says it’s facing a deficit of £200m this financial year.

Of that, £116m of a shortfall is expected for special educational needs costs, while around £40m will be missing to cover pressures which schools can’t meet within their own budgets.

Special educational needs costs go towards provisions for special educational needs in mainstream schools, special school provision, transport for children with special educational needs as well as other support services for children with special educational needs.

Without an executive in place at Stormont, there’s no formal budget and no in-year financial monitoring rounds can take place to reallocate unspent funds from other departments.

Power-sharing hasn’t been restored since the assembly election in May 2022 as the DUP has refused to re-enter the executive or nominate a speaker until its concerns over the Northern Ireland Protocol – a Brexit trade deal agreed between the UK and EU – have been resolved.

Seamas Wade from the Education Authority said the financial problem facing the organisation “is quite a concern”.

“In previous years we got support from our minister in securing additional money from the Department for Finance to meet the costs of special educational needs and I guess using the in-year monies from one year to the next is not a sustainable or long-term solution,” he said.

“The children availing of these services don’t stop availing of these services at 31st March each year, so unfortunately the benefit of in-year monies doesn’t roll forward into the baseline budget for the following year.

“The outcome of that is that we effectively lose the benefit of any monies we received in-year.

“What we really need is a recurring, sustainable solution that covers multiple years, that allows us to plan properly for the provision of services for our children and young people.

“I guess the risk is that in a year when many other public sector bodies are competing for resources I want to be sure the voice of the education service is heard.”

Mr Wade added that the education minister has continued to lobby for funding.

In a statement, the Education Department said: “The Department is well aware of the underlying pressures across the education sector. We continue to work closely with the Education Authority as they seek to manage these long-standing challenges in year.”

The rise in education budgetary pressures have in part been put down to price and pay inflation as well as an increase in demand for special educational need services. 

Mr Wade however emphasised that the Education Authority "does not envisage any situation where we would be scaling back on the services we provide to children and young people".

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