Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 294: To ask the Minister for Education and Science when she expects to provide sufficient staff to ensure the workability of the educational welfare service throughout the country; the number of staff to date deployed on a county basis; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20224/06]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

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, on a continuing basis, a nationwide service that is accessible to schools, parents/ guardians and others concerned with the welfare of young people. For this purpose, Educational Welfare Officers (EWOs) have been 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 total authorised staffing complement of the Board is 94 comprising 16 HQ and support staff, 5 regional managers, 12 Senior EWOs and 61 EWOs. Five regional teams are in place with bases in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. In deploying its service staff, the NEWB has prioritised the provision of services to the most disadvantaged areas and the most at-risk groups. This deployment includes areas designated under the Government's RAPID programme where an intensive full level of service is provided. For all remaining areas the NEWB deploy their staff on a regional basis providing various levels of service. Since September 2005 every county in Ireland is served by an educational welfare service.

The Board is continuously reviewing its procedures for prioritising children and families who require intervention, in order to ensure that children with the greatest level of need gain maximum benefit from available resources, and to work with local agencies in prioritising children's and family needs.

In addition to the NEWB personnel there are some 490 staff, within the education sector, deployed in education disadvantage programmes whose work involves an element of school attendance. My Department is anxious to ensure that the maximum benefit is derived from these substantial personnel resources. Consequently work is ongoing to develop appropriate protocols for all agencies and services to work together in collaboration and to ensure that optimum use is made of the resources deployed.

I will be keeping the issue of the NEWBs staffing under review in light of the roll-out of services, the scope for integrated working and any proposals that the Board may put to me in relation to clearly identified priority needs and in the context of Government policy on public service numbers.