Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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349. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the progress that she has achieved to date in bringing school completion officers back within her Department's remit; if her attention has been drawn to reports of the impact that education and training boards are experiencing in recruiting persons as a result of the current school completion programme governance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [61706/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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On 1 January 2021, responsibility for education welfare functions, including the administration of the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme (SCP), transferred from the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to my Department. The SCP forms part of the Tusla education support service, TESS. While the arrangements between Tusla and the SCP are not impacted by the change in ministerial responsibility, Tusla now reports to my Department in respect of the SCP, which is funded by my Department via Tusla.

The SCP was introduced in 2002 by my Department and the programme is now a central element of DEIS, my Department’s main policy initiative to address educational disadvantage at school level. The SCP delivers a range of local interventions in disadvantaged communities that support the retention of young people in education. The programme enables local communities to develop tailored strategies to maximise the participation levels of those at risk of early school-leaving in the education process. It entails targeting individual young people of school-going age and arranging supports to address inequalities in education access, participation and outcomes.

At present, management of the school completion programme initiatives, including the employment of staff, generally occurs at local level.

Since my Department took over responsibility for the school completion programme in January 2021, I secured additional funding to provide for an extension of SCP supports to 28 additional schools that were included in DEIS for the first time in September 2017 and a 5% overall increase in funding for the school completion programme, effective from September 2021. In addition, I negotiated a further increase of 5% for the SCP under budget 2023. The total funding for SCP will increase to over €34 million in 2023. This also takes into account the funding for additional schools that are eligible to access SCP since September 2022, arising from the expansion of the DEIS programme.

The initial focus of the transfer of the school completion programme has been very much on the development of the legislative platform to support the transfer of functions from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and the process in that respect was recently completed.

My Department is now moving on to consider all aspects of the programme, including governance and structures for SCP and all aspects involved therein. Officials from my Department have recently engaged with Tusla and other relevant stakeholders in relation to SCP; this engagement will continue in the context of the overall consideration of the programme.