Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today's debate has been initiated by Fianna Fáil to discuss its proposals for putting the teacher allocation appeals process for schools on a statutory basis. To be frank, I am not sure what Fianna Fáil's motives are in proposing this Bill. A sceptic could see this as a populist stunt designed to help schools avoid losing any resources. This parish-pump-type politics is not what a self-styled responsible Opposition party should be about. It seems strange that during almost 14 years in power, Fianna Fáil never saw the need to make such changes to the staffing appeals process.

I applaud Deputy McConalogue on the passion and gusto he has shown for his portfolio. He has made some excellent speeches in this House over the last number of months on educational issues. He has achieved a certain amount of credibility in the area but if he is to retain that credibility he should prevent himself from further rewriting history. He speaks of impact analyses, but I wonder what impact analyses were carried out before Fianna Fáil ran the Irish economy off the edge of a cliff. He might like to refer back to Fianna Fáil's four-year economic recovery plan which commits or obliges this State to find €330 million of savings in the education budget between 2011 and 2014. That is the legacy this Government is dealing with, and to suggest now, in hindsight, that it is somehow possible to completely protect the education budget from such cuts is dishonest and does not allow rational debate on the issue to occur.

Since coming into office, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, has been consistently clear to everyone in this House and elsewhere that funding for all public services, including education, has to reflect the fact that Ireland is operating in a budgetary programme that is designed to put our public finances on a sustainable footing. This is a long and difficult road to travel but we have a lot of the journey done. We are beginning to see the benefit of this, with more and more of our key economic indicators starting to move into positive territory.

A key part of our overall budgetary strategy is a requirement to reduce the public sector payroll. Reductions in the public service pay bill and staffing numbers will continue to play a part in expenditure consolidation. That means improving our health system with fewer nurses and doctors, maintaining our infrastructure with fewer engineers and architects and also, for now at least, educating our children with fewer teachers. The Government has protected education as much as it can. Far greater reductions in expenditure and in numbers of public servants are being made in other sectors relative to those in our school system. However, there are limits to the level of expenditure on education and the number of teaching posts we can afford.

The teacher allocation process commences around January of each year to determine staffing in schools for the following September. The key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the number of pupils in each school. Basing the staffing of schools on the number of pupils in each school is objective, logical and transparent. In simple terms, it means that a school with 100 pupils is allocated more resources than a school with 80 pupils. If one takes primary schools as an example, the relevant appointment and retention figures for mainstream staffing are published annually in what is commonly referred to as the staffing schedule. The staffing schedule operates on the basis of enrolment bands and treats all similar schools the same. This means that a standard school with an enrolment of 100 pupils is a four-classroom school, irrespective of whether it is located in Dublin, Cork or Donegal.

Changes in the number of classroom teachers in a primary school can be affected by changes in the enrolment in the school or by budget measures to the pupil thresholds in the staffing schedule.

Irrespective of how they occur, the key issue is that schools are treated equally in the published staffing schedule. Politics is not allowed to influence these decisions and there is a level of transparency for which we should strive in the allocation of all resources provided from the public purse. At post-primary level, the standard staffing allocation for schools is based on the following staffing ratios: 18.25:1 in DEIS post-primary schools; 19:1 in schools in the free scheme; 21:1 in fee charging schools, which figure will rise to 23:1 from September. The teacher allocation process also includes provision for additional resources to be allocated to those schools that have significant increases in their enrolments for the following September. Significant additional resources are also provided for schools to cater for pupils with special needs. We recently published guidance for schools to assist them in evaluating their own performance in key areas such as literacy and numeracy. The challenge for all schools is to ensure they utilise their allocated resources to best effect to maximise teaching and learning outcomes. School self-evaluations will support schools to do exactly that.

The existing staffing appeals process also operates in a very clear, simple and transparent manner. It operates through an independent staffing appeals board, using published and transparent criteria. The fact that it operates on an administrative basis means that it can deal with the staffing appeals from schools in a flexible and streamlined way. The existing appeals process is also a fully integrated part of the teacher allocation process. At primary level, the appeals board typically meets about three times a year, in the spring, summer and autumn. The process for submitting appeals is simple and straightforward. It involves the relevant schools that meet the eligibility criteria setting out their reasons for submitting an appeal and this information is considered by the independent staffing appeals board. A similar type of flexible approach applies to the appeals process at post-primary level. This simple and streamlined approach contrasts with the much more elaborate and cumbersome process envisaged in the Bill. It is worth noting that the experience of schools of appeals processes that operate on a statutory basis such as section 29 appeals regarding enrolments is not very good. Many schools regard the section 29 appeals process as time-consuming, overly elaborate and burdensome. It is far preferable to retain the flexibility of the existing staffing appeals process that operates on an administrative basis.

None of the stakeholders in the school system has informed my Department of the need to make the type of changes to the existing appeals system that are envisaged in the Bill. The simple reality is that the existing appeals system works and does not need to be made complicated and cumbersome. An example of how the primary staffing appeals board operated in 2012 can be gauged from how it dealt with small schools that were due to lose a classroom post as a result of the budget 2012 measure. At the time the Minister and I said we would put in place an appeals process for these schools and it is useful to note how this worked out. A total of 73 small schools were affected by the budget measure, 63 of which submitted appeals to the staffing appeals board. Some 43 small schools had their appeals provisionally upheld by the appeals board, subject to confirmation in September 2012 that the required level of enrolments was achieved. The required level of enrolments was achieved in 29 of these schools. All of these schools were dealt with in a fair, transparent and objective manner. The appeals process for these schools could only operate after they became aware of their projected enrolments for September 2012. This would not be possible within the timeframes envisaged in Fianna Fáil's Bill.

Some of the key problems in the appeals system proposed in the Bill are that it would require a cumbersome and bureaucratic process to be put in place that would not be realistic to operate within tight timeframes. The Bill does not differentiate between reductions in resources arising in the normal manner from changes in pupil enrolments, or the profile of pupils in terms of special needs or reductions that arise owing to budget measures. Is Fianna Fáil suggesting a school that has seen a reduction of 20 pupils should see no reduction in its resources? It does not make it clear whether the appeals process would apply to teacher staff or whether it would also apply to non-teacher staff and the various grants allocated to schools.

The proposed annual educational impact study is very detailed. It would involve an assessment of the impact of a resource allocation reduction on each and every pupil in all of the affected schools. It is envisaged that this annual study would be conducted by the Minister and completed by 30 November each year. It is not realistic to expect this type of study to be completed for every affected school by 30 November. The appeals process envisaged under the Bill would be initiated in the autumn-winter period and completed before the annual teacher allocation process commences in the spring of each year, which is simply putting the cart before the horse. The timeframe also takes no account of budgetary timeframes and the fact that any budget measure that affects teacher allocations would not be known when the educational impact studies were being conducted.

The Bill also proposes that the final decision on staffing appeals rest with the Minister. This is not an appropriate role for a politician. The operation of an objective, transparent appeals board is a much more appropriate model.

Instead of seeking to micro-manage schools, it would be more appropriate to have a debate in the House about the Government's plans for expenditure in advance of budgetary decisions. In this regard, we need to consider reforming our traditional system of budgeting. The Government is committed to doing this and the process of reform is being led by my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin. Some of the main features of that new budgetary architecture will be that the Government's spending plans, with its tax plans, will be anchored in a clear vision for how the public finances will be managed in the coming years; the introduction of a modern, multi-annual expenditure framework to give greater transparency to the allocations available to each Department to facilitate better planning and Dáil oversight; a greater focus on building performance information into the annual Estimates in order that performance information can be scrutinised by Oireachtas committees at the same time as that money is being requested; and an enhanced role for the Oireachtas to allow Oireachtas committees to engage earlier and more fully on Estimate allocations before they are settled for the year. These reforms will not all happen overnight, but they show that the Government is committed to doing its budgetary business in a better and more transparent manner than in the traditional opaque systems of the past.

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