Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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81. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to investigate the urgent concerns of a school with respect to the failure of her Department to provide it with an ancillary grant (details supplied); if she will direct her Department to answer the questions repeatedly put to it by the school; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21616/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Ancillary Services Grant is payable to recognised primary schools and special schools in the Free Education Scheme. The grant is intended to cater for the cost of employing Secretarial and Caretaking staff. It is up to the BOM to allocate this funding as per their priorities. As per Circular 0040/2009 (www.gov.ie/en/department-of-education/circulars/clarification-regarding-legitimate-use-of-capitation-funding-2/) the capitation grant provided for general running costs and the ancillary services grant provided for Secretarial and Caretaking services may be regarded as a common grant from which the Board of Management can allocate according to its own priorities.

After Forsa accepted the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) agreement about salaries and leave for grant-funded school secretaries, the secretaries who accepted the agreement were added to the Department of Education’s payroll from September 2023. Because of this, the ancillary-related grant funding has been updated, since schools are no longer paying these salaries directly.

From January to August 2025, grant funding will be reduced based on the salaries schools paid to grant-funded secretaries before they agreed to the new terms and conditions. Schools have given the Department the salary information, and this is now being used to reduce the ancillary-related grant funding.

To date we have issued correspondence to schools with details of the arrangements for: September to December 2023, January to August 2024, September to December 2024 and January to August 2025.

Since the 2023/24 school year, schools have been paid the usual ancillary/SSSF grant amount, minus the amount that schools previously paid to grant-funded secretaries prior to their acceptance of the new terms and conditions. Schools should be in no way disadvantaged by this as the grant is reduced only by the amount that they previously paid to their secretaries.

In some situations, the salaries of ancillary staff in a particular school may have been higher than the ancillary grant due to the school, and the school may have funded this difference via other revenue streams.

In situations where the salary that a school was paying their secretary was higher than the ancillary grant due to the school, prior to them being added to the Department of Education’s payroll, then the ancillary grant is reduced to NIL. This should not impact the school’s financial position.

For the specific school mentioned, the ancillary grant has been reduced to NIL as the salary the school was previously paying their secretary, prior to moving to the Department’s payroll, was higher than the ancillary grant available to the school prior to reductions being applied. The level of funding available to the school for ancillary staff, including their caretaker, has not changed as the school is no longer funding the salary of the secretary.

The rate of ancillary services grant has not decreased and continues to be paid based on the relevant enrolments in the school multiplied by the rates set out in Circular 0017/2021 (www.gov.ie/en/department-of-education/services/ancillary-services-grant/#circulars).