Northern Ireland education funding crisis: DUP calls for reforms and Treasury funding after leaders lobby over £500m shortfall

DUP Education Spokesperson Diane Dodds was speaking after chief executives from eight key education bodies met with the four largest Stormont parties yesterday about their concerns.

In a statement, the education chiefs said they were "very concerned about the ever growing, unprecedented, pressures facing education".

They said: "Coupled with 2023/24 anticipated pay and price inflation, continued projected growth in demand for Special Educational Needs (SEN) services as well as proposed budget cuts across the Northern Ireland public sector generally, the result is a projected funding shortfall that is very likely to be well in excess of £0.5 billion for the incoming financial year."

The letter was signed by Eugene O'Neill of The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools; Maria Thomasson of Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta; Mark Baker of The Controlled Schools’ Support Council; Fintan Murphy, Chief Executive of the Catholic Schools’ Trustee Service; Nuala O’Neill of the Governing Bodies Association NI; Roisin Marshall of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education and Dr Andrew Brown, Chairperson of the Transferor Representatives’ Council.

Speaking after the meeting, DUP education spokeswoman Diane Dodds said: “The fundamentals impacting the education budget must be recognised, with the Education Authority predicting there could be a shortfall of £500million this year. There are particular pressures around Special Educational Needs, which has seen its budget double in the last 8 years and will account for nearly a quarter of the entire Department’s budget.

I have been raising concerns in this area for some time now and making it clear that there is a need for Education to be recognised as ‘mission critical’ in budgetary terms in parallel with the Department of Health.

The scale of this challenge has not arisen overnight and there will be no simple or quick fix. Significant reform is necessary across many areas of our public sector but that in itself will require the Treasury to recognise the challenges we face in Northern Ireland. We want to see devolution restored as quickly as possible, and whilst everyone knows the issues that prevent this, a restored Executive would require resources to deliver the scale of reform necessary across our public services.”