Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The teacher secondment scheme is designed to facilitate the temporary assignment of a teacher to a vacant position in a host organisation, where the work to be carried out by the seconded teacher is of clear benefit to the education system. 

 A secondment must be based on mutual agreement between the teacher, the school authority and the host organisation and is subject to approval by my Department. When considering secondment applications schools are requested to consider national/ education objectives and policies and to facilitate, where possible, the release of teachers to national programmes for the benefit of the wider school community.

Information abstracted from a manual database indicates that seventy three primary teachers were on secondments in excess of five years in the period 2009 to 2014. The numbers in Voluntary secondary and community/ comprehensive schools on secondments in excess of five years in the same period was one hundred and eighty five. Information on secondments in E.T.Bs is not available in my Department.  The other information requested involves the examination of the hundreds of personal records and it has not been possible to dedicate the time required to undertake this task to date. 

In 2010 a new limit on secondment numbers for teacher CPD support services and for positions in management and other bodies or working on programmes run by the Department was introduced. It is a condition of the revised arrangements that the maximum length of time that any teacher may be on secondment is set at 5 years, following which they may return to their schools.

The rationale for the revised policy on secondments is the need to ensure that only persons with recent knowledge and experience of teaching and learning and curriculum are involved in the design and delivery of professional development programmes for teachers.

While some difficulty was experienced implementing the new requirements particularly in relation to those who were on secondment prior to the new requirements being introduced in 2010, the 5 year limit has been implemented with some strictly limited alleviation agreed with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the Education Centres and support services to facilitate succession planning at local and national levels.

Draft proposals to amend the length of secondment arrangements to Department approved programmes are currently being considered under the auspices of the Teacher Conciliation Council. 

The Teacher Conciliation Council is part of the scheme of Conciliation and Arbitration for Teachers and was set up to deal with claims and proposals relating to the Terms and Conditions of employment of teachers. The Council is composed of representatives of teachers, school management, the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and is chaired by an official of the Workplace Relations Commission.

Once finalised it is planned to publish the new revised secondment scheme.