Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question and I am pleased to take this opportunity on behalf of the Department of Education to assure him and this House that not only will all vacant SENO posts across the country be filled but there will be a significant increase in the number of SENOs employed by the NCSE in the very near future. A nationwide competition for the recruitment of SENOs was advertised in October 2023 with a closing date of 2 November for receipt of applications, and it has had huge interest.

At present, the NCSE advises the Department of Education that three SENO posts are vacant nationwide out of a staffing complement of 73 SENOs. There is a recruitment drive for SENOs under way and the NCSE is also undertaking a strategic review of the organisation. This will see an improvement in how front-line staff are allocated to best meet the needs of children and the schools they attend.

As a result of the significant increase in funding that this Government provided to the NCSE in budget 2023, the NCSE is now undergoing an expansion that will see a 50% increase in the number of staff employed. A huge focus of the increase in staff will be on front-line services and this will see SENO numbers increased by at least an additional 43 staff.

The Department of Education acknowledges the challenges for children, their families and schools that can arise as a result of vacancies in the NCSE, and while the NCSE has always worked to mitigate these challenges, they have been further exacerbated by a significant growth in the need for NCSE services in recent years. At present, each of the 73 SENOs is responsible for approximately 342 children with the most complex needs and for engaging with 55 schools on average. In certain areas, particularly if there was intensive engagement on school placements or exceptional reviews, this could mean multiple visits to a very small numbers of schools.

It was a priority for the Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion, Deputy Madigan, that the NCSE should expand and develop its services to meet the needs of children with special educational needs in a responsive and child-centred way. That is why we are investing an additional €13 million for the recruitment of up to 161 additional staff into the organisation, including increasing our SENO numbers to 116. It was very important that the NCSE plans effectively for this expansion and for that reason it has undertaken a significant organisational development review over the past 12 months. The Department of Education is pleased to say this will be ready to roll out from January 2024.

The NCSE has undertaken a significant process of engagement with both internal and external stakeholders in the context of the organisational design process. It was critical that the NCSE took this opportunity to evaluate its structure, operating model and resource requirements to deliver on its strategic objectives and be responsive to the needs of students, parents and schools.

As part of the organisational design, the NCSE has identified key drivers in demand for services, underpinned by a robust analysis of data gathered over the last five years. This will ensure that the NCSE can best match current and future resources to specific areas of need on an individual county basis, and that the NCSE will have a working model to project areas of future need so it can respond to and anticipate changing circumstances to meet the needs of children, their families and schools as they arise. In addition, the new detailed organisational design will significantly change the structure of the organisation, including a doubling of the number of regional teams, all of which will contain SENOs and advisers.

The Department of Education is pleased to report that there was a substantial response to the SENO competition I mentioned earlier and it is currently moving through the various selection stages. It is intended that the intake from this recruitment campaign will commence in January, and the new staff will be assigned to fill the small number of existing vacancies and to take up the new positions created as part of the NCSE expansion.

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