John Perry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 135: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the average number of cases allocated to each educational welfare officer; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12934/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Education (Welfare) Act 2000 established the National Educational Welfare Board as the single national body with responsibility for school attendance. The Act provides a comprehensive framework promoting regular school attendance and tackling the problems of absenteeism and early school leaving. The general functions of the board are to ensure that each child attends a recognised school or otherwise receives a certain minimum education.

To discharge its responsibilities, the board is developing a nationwide service that is accessible to schools, parents or guardians and others concerned with the welfare of young people. For this purpose, educational welfare officers, EWOs, are being appointed and deployed throughout the country to provide a welfare focused service to support regular school attendance and discharge the board's functions locally. The service is developing on a continuing basis and the board received sanction in late 2004 from my Department to recruit an additional ten educational welfare officers. This brings its total authorised staffing complement to 94, comprising 16 headquarters and support staff, five regional managers, 11 senior educational welfare officers and 62 educational welfare officers.

There are 48 educational welfare officers and 11 senior educational welfare officers serving with the board. I understand the board is in the process of making appointments which will bring the number of service delivery staff to its authorised complement. When in place, these staff will enable the board to further roll out its services at local level around the country.

Five regional teams have been established by the board with bases in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford and staff are deployed in areas of greatest disadvantage and in areas designated under the Government's RAPID programme. Thirteen towns with significant school going populations, 12 of which are designated under the Government's RAPID programme, also now have an educational welfare officer allocated to them. In addition, the board follows up on urgent cases nationally where children are not receiving an education. The budget which has been allocated to the NEWB for 2005 is €7.8 million, an increase of €1.3 million or 20% on the 2004 allocation.

The National Educational Welfare Board has indicated to my Department that the average caseload of each educational welfare officer as at end February 2005 was 176.