Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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1911. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she has read the ESRI review of the school completion programme; if her attention has been drawn to its findings regarding the effects of significant funding shortfalls making local groups unable to provide targeted interventions such as the provision of summer programmes for at-risk children; her views on whether the continued under-funding of the SCP by her Department is inconsistent with the ambition as stated in the programme for a partnership Government (details supplied); and her further views on whether her Department's and Tusla's lack of interest in the school completion programme is an indication that they do not consider the improvement of participation and retention of children in school integral to their core mandate. [27189/17]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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1912. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs further to Parliamentary Question No. 605 of 16 May 2017, the way in which without data on a postcode or electoral district level the public and the Houses of the Oireachtas can be expected to evaluate the effects of the budget reductions that have taken place to the school completion programme and home school liaison programme since 2012 and in which the ESRI review of the programmes identified significant negative impacts on local provision of interventions; her views on whether staff time would be well spent in collating this data at this level in order to assess whether the impact of budget reductions identified by the qualitative ESRI review is widespread across different areas; and her further views on whether the reluctance of Tusla to compile this data indicates that it does not consider the improvement of participation and retention of children in school integral to its core mandate. [27190/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1911 and 1912 together.

I am advised by Tusla that the allocation of resources to the School Completion Programme (SCP) and Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) Programme is not linked to either postcode or electoral areas rather it is linked to schools based on the needs of the cohort of children attending each school.

Currently schools provide school based data which allows Tusla to compile county level reports for the Annual School Attendance Report. The two pieces of data schools are obliged to provide are details of children missing over 20 school days and aggregate school absences per school year. As children do not always attend school in their local or electoral area it would require every school in the country to report all students’ attendances with their postcode in order to generate comprehensive electoral area school attendance figures.

The majority of schools in the SCP programme are included as they were identified for extra supports under the Delivering Equality of Opportunity inSchools(DEIS) programme which is managed by the Department of Education and Skills (DES).

Annual data regarding school attendance at county level is published by Tusla in the Annual School Attendance Reports which are available online at

The Department of Education and Skills publish annual retention reports for DEIS schools and these reports demonstrate that school completion rates in DEIS schools have improved at a rate faster than other schools since 2012 which indicate that the interventions to support attendance, participation and retention including SCP and HSCL are making positive impacts.

The DEIS 2017 review also indicates that overall the suite of supports offered through DEIS have generated positive outcomes.

The SCP currently receives €24.7 million in annual finding which is used to support 124 local projects at an average of €200,000 per project. In line with all public services, the SCP was subject to cuts during the period of austerity. However since the SCP has come under the remit of Tusla in 2014 funding for the initative has not been cut. Tusla has committed significant resources to addressing the many recommendations in the ESRI Report to which the Deputy refers and when these recommendations are fully addressed, including the key areas of governance and employment, the matter of the funding of the SCP can be reviewed, particularly in the context of the recent review of the DEIS Programme.

The following are the actions undertaken by Tusla in response to the ESRI recommendations:

- All SCP staff have received 4 days of Continuous Professional Development in the last year with 2 further days planned for autumn 2017.

- Graphite Human Resource Company has been contracted to provide day to day Industrial Relations and Human Resources support to all 124 SCP Local Management Committees (LMCs)

- The Wheel has provided a series of Governance workshops and webinars to support LMCs.

- The SCP Retention Planning Template has been improved to assist with planning at local level.

- An employment audit was completed and this reflects the concerns raised by the ESRI report in relation to employment practices across some LMCs.

- SCP funding has remained constant since SCP came into Tusla.

- The number of HSCL Coordinators will increase from 400 to 419 from September 2017 as a result of the DEIS review bringing further schools into the DEIS support programme.

- SCP coordinators and project workers have been actively involved in all developments and have contributed positively to the CPD and Retention planning template.

- Work is ongoing on the development of a new Governance and employment model for SCP.

I have been assured that Tusla is fully committed to the School Completion Programme and will strive to ensure that the SCP is in a position to deliver consistent high quality provision nationally.