Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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673. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the date on which ancillary grants were paid to schools and the amount in total, for 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025; the changes that have been made to the ancillary grant to take account of the changed status of secretaries but not caretakers, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30509/25]

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 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.

Since the 2023/24 school year, schools have been paid the usual ancillary grant amount, minus the amount that schools previously paid to grant-funded secretaries prior to their acceptance of the new terms and conditions. Schools provided the Department with these details and this information is being used to reduce the ancillary-related grant funding. Schools should be in no way disadvantaged by this, as the grant is reduced only by the amount they previously paid to their secretaries. The rate of gross 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 www.gov.ie/en/department-of-education/services/ancillary-services-grant/#circulars

To date the Department has 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.

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, the ancillary grant is reduced to NIL. This should not impact the school’s financial position.

Work is ongoing to identify a method of standardising the reduction to the ancillary-related grants for the longer term where school secretaries are being paid on the Department’s payroll. The current reductions may vary when a permanent model for ancillary-related grant reductions has been finalised.

The table below shows the ancillary grant expenditure for the relevant years: