COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 4 Nov 2004

2002 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts.

Department of Education and Science.

Chapter 7.4 National Educational Psychological Service.

Mr. J. Dennehy

(Secretary General, Department of Education and Science) called and examined.

Chairman

I draw the attention of witnesses and members to the fact that as and from 2 August 1998, section 10 of the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act 1997 grants certain rights to persons who are identified in the course of the committee's proceedings. These rights include the right to give evidence, the right to produce or send documents to the committee, the right to appear before the committee, either in person or through a representative, the right to make a written and oral submission, the right to request the committee to direct the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents, and the right to cross-examine witnesses. For the most part, these rights may be exercised only with the consent of the committee. Persons invited before the committee are made aware of these rights and any persons identified in the course of proceedings who are not present may have to be made aware of these rights and provided with a transcript of the relevant part of the committee proceedings if the committee considers it appropriate in the interests of justice.

Notwithstanding this provision in the legislation, I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members are also reminded of the provisions of Standing Order 156 that the committee should refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government, or a Minister of the Government, or the merits of the objectives of such policies. Will Mr. Dennehy introduce his colleagues from the Department of Education and Science?

Mr. John Dennehy

With me is Brian Duggan, principal officer in the finance unit, Lee MacCurtain, the acting director of the National Educational Psychological Service, and Mr. Mícheál Ó Fiannachta, assistant principal officer in the National Educational Psychological Service.

Chairman

Will the Department of Finance officials introduce themselves?

Ms Anne Nolan

I am from the public expenditure division of the Department of Finance. With me is Niall O'Sullivan, also from the public expenditure division, and Tom Murphy from the Vote control section.

Chairman

I call on the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce Chapter 7.4 which reads:

National Educational Psychological Service

Introduction

The Minister for Education and Science established the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) as an executive agency of his Department in September 1999 in response to demands for a psychological service for all Primary and Post Primary schools. A planning group for NEPS was set up in 1997 and reported in 1998. It established the blueprint for the service and set out the service and manning levels for the proposed agency. It is intended to establish NEPS on a statutory basis by order under the Education Act 1998.

The mission of NEPS is to support the personal, social and educational development of all children through the application of psychological theory and research in education, having particular regard for children with special educational needs.

In essence its main objectives are to:

Support students

Support those who help students

Help schools respond to particular issues

Engage with schools in the promotion of mental health.

In pursuing its objectives the agency's activities can be divided into two main areas, which are:

Case management viz. dealing with referrals, conducting assessments, suggesting interventions and follow up

Support and Development Work viz. consultation with teachers, developing and implementing whole school strategies relating to educational psychology and in-service training in schools.

The main thrust of the agency's work in its initial years has been the conduct of psychological assessment of students due to pent-up demand for this service. The assessments have been delivered through a combination of in-house psychological staff and outsourced psychologists.

Objectives of the Audit

The audit sought to establish:

·How the agency was fulfilling its mandate

·The systems in place for measuring performance.

Fulfilling the NEPS Mandate

Staffing The Service

The precise number of students who need to avail of NEPS services cannot easily be determined. However, the agency set two key targets for the level of coverage to be achieved by the end of its five-year developmental phase:

·Every primary and post-primary school to have access to a psychological service

·One psychologist per 5,000 pupils to be available to provide this service.

The student populations in these schools were 439,560 (primary) and 345,384 (post-primary) in 2003. The target coverage was to be achieved by a phased increase over 5 years (1999-2004) in the professional psychologists employed by the service with a corresponding increase in support staff and the overall financial resources expended on the service.

In 1998, 69 psychologists were already working in the education sector — 53 in the Department of Education and Science, 6 in the two Dublin VECs, 5 were employed by area partnerships for educational work and 5 full-time equivalents in schools for young offenders. A target of 200 psychologists working in the education sector was set, of whom 184 would be in NEPS, working in 10 regions roughly corresponding to the 10 Health Board Regions. Table 7.16 shows the planned phasing and actual outturn to-date for the employment of psychologists and support staff in NEPS.

Table 7.16 Staff Numbers (actual vs. planned) 1999 — 2003

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Staff	Actual	Plan	Actual	Plan	Actual	Plan	Actual	Plan	Actual	Plan
Professional	43	78	75	103	87	131	121	158	123	184
Support	4	7	7	23	9	30	13	35	19	39
Total	47	85	82	126	96	161	134	193	142	223

Recruitment of additional psychologists proved to be more time consuming than expected. A considerable amount of time was needed to shortlist, interview and clear candidates leading to delays in making appointments.

The Accounting Officer stated that as at August 2003 there were 123 psychologists in NEPS, as opposed to the target of 158 for the end of the school year 2002/2003 and that he hoped that offers of employment currently being made will result in a total of 127 psychologists in post by mid-October 2003.

Cost

The cost of providing the NEPS service comprises salary costs of professional and administrative staff, bought-in services and travel and accommodation expenses. The cost for 2002, at €11m reflects the increase in overall staff numbers in the Service as well as the first full year of purchased assessments. The cost of fitting out a number of new NEPS offices was largely borne in 2002. Table 7.17 gives a breakdown of these costs since NEPS was established.

Table 7.17 Cost of NEPS 1999-2003

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003 (est)
	€m	€m	€m	€m	€m
Professional Staff	0.6	2.9	4.5	6.2	10.0
Administrative Staff	—	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.6
Purchased Assessments	—	—	0.2	1.4	1.2
Other Authorised Payments	—	—	—	0.9	—
Total Pay	0.6	3.0	4.9	8.8	11.8
Travel and Subsidence	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.6	0.7
Office Overheads	0.6	0.4	0.9	1.7	1.9
Total	1.3	3.6	6.2	11.1	14.4

Regional Coverage

The 1998 Report of the Planning Group recommended a ratio of one psychologist to approximately 5,000 students (Primary and Post-Primary). The number of psychologists currently employed would give a ratio of approximately 1 to 6,825 if they were assigned evenly throughout the country. However, as additional psychologists are appointed, each is allocated the number of students recommended, giving a degree of uniformity in psychologist/student ratios where a service is provided but not in coverage across the country.

The latest figures available indicate that the agency provides a service to 1790 out of 3200 primary schools and 670 out of 751 post-primary schools. Table 7.18 shows the breakdown by region and the numbers of students with access to the service.

Table 7.18 Coverage of schools by NEPS by Region (April 2003)

			% Covered by NEPS
Region	Schools	Pupils	Schools	Pupils
Eastern Region (East Coast Area)	224	67,996	89%	94%
Eastern Region (Northern Area)	227	80,888	76%	86%
Eastern Region (South Western Area)	201	72,040	59%	69%
Midlands	161	37,431	54%	76%
Mid West	121	32,477	29%	45%
North East	211	55,167	55%	76%
North West	146	48,702	43%	71%
South	434	88,182	69%	73%
South East	279	71,450	58%	78%
West	454	68,894	75%	87%
Total	2,458	623,227	62%	79%

NEPS has indicated that there is full coverage of all mainstream schools in County Kerry and in the Connemara Gaeltacht and practically full coverage in the East Coast Area. In these areas, negotiations are now beginning with special schools and with the Health Boards and voluntary bodies that have hitherto served them. NEPS intends to serve these schools in collaboration with the clinical services. However difficulty has been encountered in recruiting psychologists to a number of regions, notably the Midlands, North West, Mid West and this is reflected in the levels of service delivery shown in Table 7.18.

The Accounting Officer said that the difficulty of recruiting psychologists who are prepared to work in the Mid-Western region is a particular concern to the Department. He noted that psychologists recruited to NEPS have, for the most part, substantial experience and are already in full time employment and, in many cases, have family commitments. This affects their willingness to take up employment in particular regions.

The Accounting Officer went on to say that NEPS has, with the help of the Department's IT Section, developed a weighting database as a management tool to assist in determining the optimum deployment of psychologists. The system takes account of such factors as the size and level of school, level of disadvantage and incidence of children with special needs. NEPS is moving from a psychologist-student ratio to a psychologist-points ratio with the aim of trying to ensure equity when assigning schools to psychologists and to enable psychologists to plan their allocation of time to each school. The Eastern Region (South Western Area) has some of the largest and most disadvantaged schools in the country. On foot of the weighting system, a smaller number of schools have been assigned to psychologists in the Eastern Region (South Western Area) than would be the case in other regions.

The Accounting Officer further informed me that a joint National Steering Committee has been set up to implement the recommendations of a NEPS/Health Boards Working Group on collaborative working and alignment of service at national, regional and local level. The findings of the working group have been published in its report, "Achieving through Partnership".

Delivering the Service

The 1998 Report of the Planning Group co nsidered the various factors which arise from the work of an educational psychologist and in particular the importance of striking a proper balance between casework and support and development work in the context of estimating the total number of psychologists needed to provide the service. The Planning Group suggested that the ratio between casework and other services should be of the order of two to one while stressing that this proposal should not be rigidly interpreted.

Casework Output

Assessments Undertaken Directly by NEPS

Psychological assessment is a key component of casework and one that has received a considerable degree of attention both on account of its place as a core activity of psychologists working in education and the fact that it plays a crucial role in the provision of extra resources by the Department in respect of special educational needs. Table 7.19 shows the numbers of assessments carried out by NEPS psychologists during the three school years since inception.

Table 7.19 Number of assessments carried out by NEPS Psychologists

	1999-2000	2000-2001	2001-2002
Total number of assessments	3,051	2,978	4,536
Of which full assessments (i.e involving IQ test)	2,131	2,212	3,594
Number of Psychologists reporting	39	61	72

While the number of assessments completed is a useful measure of achievement it is worth noting the Planning Group's caution that: "In casework itself, a narrow focus on the assessment aspect limits the usefulness of the intervention for students, parents and teachers. There is need for recommendations, follow through, for advice on provision for the students and for support for parents and teachers".

Table 7.20 Analysis of assessments carried out by NEPS psychologists by Region (Academic year 2001/2002)

	Pupils Assessed	Full Assessment	Average Number of Assessments Per Psychologist	Average Number of Full Assessments Per Psychologist	Psychologists Reporting
Eastern Region (East Coast Area)	768	579	77	58	10
Eastern Region (Northern Area)	641	432	64	43	10
Eastern Region (South Western Area)	682	510	68	51	10
Midlands	150	136	75	68	2
Mid-West	256	234	85	78	3
North East	394	332	56	47	7
North West	82	69	41	35	2
South	485	388	49	39	10
South East	439	350	55	44	8
West	639	564	64	56	10
NEPS	4,536	3,594	63	50	72

All casework undertaken by NEPS psychologists since September 2002 is being recorded in a computerised client tracking system (CASETRACK) developed in conjunction with the Department's IT unit to provide case management facilities to psychologists. The system is designed to track students seen by NEPS psychologists and will facilitate statistical analysis of this aspect of the work of the agency. NEPS has indicated that while the CASETRACK system is currently operational, problems are being experienced in providing administrative resources to support it.

The Accounting Officer informed me that the announcement by the then Minister for Education and Science, in autumn 1998, about the automatic entitlements of primary school children with special educational needs was made shortly after the publication of the Report of the Planning Group for NEPS.

The additional demands that resulted had not been factored into the Planning Group's calculations of potential demands on NEPS. Almost immediately, there was a noticeable increase in the number of referrals for individual assessment, including many from schools not yet having access to a psychological service. This was because the Department's regulations require that the allocation of extra resources should be, in many cases, dependent on the findings in a psychological report. The increase in the number of special units and classes has also had a marked effect on the workload of the psychologists in schools.

Commissioned Assessments

NEPS responded to this surge in demand by introducing a scheme for commissioning assessments from private psychologists. Under the scheme primary schools with no access to NEPS assessments may commission psychological assessments from an approved panel of private practitioners. The scheme also applies in schools that have access to psychological assessments but where there is a backlog of urgent referrals for special needs education. NEPS consider the scheme to be an interim measure.

Table 7.21 shows the number of assessments commissioned and their cost for the 22 months to 30 June 2003.

Table 7.21 Commissioned assessments and costs

Calendar Year	Number	Costs €
2001 from September	342	190,257
2002	3,907	1,337,230
2003 to end June	2,080	689,246

As the scheme developed, a number of problems became apparent:

·Initially, there was some confusion over which schools were eligible to commission assessments.Some schools went ahead although they were already allocated to a NEPS psychologist and thus were not eligible. Psychologists identified to carry out the work were advised to check whether schools were eligible before they accepted a commission.

·The coverage of the country by the commissioned psychologists was patchy and schools in some areas found it very difficult for logistical reasons to get psychologists.

·As the demands increased, the psychologists became increasingly busy. Schools found it very difficult to get an appointment with a scheme psychologist within a reasonable time period.

Feedback from schools participating in the scheme of Commissioned Assessments

NEPS has advised that as part of its continuous assessment of the scheme it conducted a survey, in summer 2002, in a representative number of schools using the scheme. The survey sought feedback from the schools on the level of satisfaction with the quality of service they received and the administration of the scheme. It also asked for views regarding the method of payment for the service and suggestions on how the scheme could be improved.

The response to this survey indicated a significant level of satisfaction with the ease of use, time to get appointments, professional standards and quality of reports. Satisfaction with the administration of the scheme, including method of payment for the service was also high. Only 2 out of 214 respondents indicated that they did not wish to have the scheme continue. Both had had NEPS psychologists appointed to their schools during the year.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Commissioned Assessments

The scheme was introduced to meet a specific difficulty due to a pent up demand for assessments. NEPS believes this will diminish as planned levels o f staff come on stream and the organisation evolves to a more advanced stage of development.

NEPS believes that its psychologists can provide the most appropriate support service for students, parents and teachers by:

·Advising teachers on appropriate screening and diagnostic instruments and checking results of teacher-administered tests

·Helping teachers to develop Individual Education Plans

·Carrying out reviews of progress to check if pupils are benefiting from their plan

·Tracking pupils with special educational needs through the educational system??

·Helping schools to develop policies and actions that may prevent some of the presenting problems

·Contributing to relevant training programmes for teachers.

The Accounting Officer stated that this strategy means that NEPS, by enhancing the capacity of schools to prevent school failure, can indirectly help many more children than could be met individually by psychologists. This is in line with the Department's general policy trends. It is also intended to be cost effective and provide greater value for money.

The experience of contracting in assessment services presents NEPS with an opportunity to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages including costs of such an approach. To date, unit costs per assessment comparing those carried out by a NEPS psychologist as against a scheme assessment has not been computed by NEPS. Such a costing exercise should be a priority.

The Accounting Officer informed me that the NEPS administrative staff have not had the resources to develop and produce a financial management system capable of yielding an authoritative unit cost per assessment carried out by a NEPS psychologist. NEPS will, however, work with the Department, to put in place arrangements that will ensure that a unit costing will be carried out as a priority, so that the unit cost of an assessment by a NEPS psychologist can be compared with the unit cost of an assessment by a scheme psychologist.

NEPS is not in favour of outsourcing assessment work as a general strategy. However, it envisages that there will continue to be a limited need for some private assessment work to provide urgent cover in cases of parental leave or long term serious illness of NEPS psychologist staff.

The Accounting Officer, in his comments on commissioned assessments, pointed out that the commissioning scheme provides only a small part of an educational psychological service. Only a psychological report is provided but there is no follow up of the child. The scheme does not significantly enhance the school's capacity to respond to the children's needs.

In contrast, when a child is referred to a NEPS psychologist, an individual psychological assessment will only be provided if, after consultations with teachers and parents, school-based interventions have failed and progress monitored. This is a more cost effective intervention.

Because of concerns that have arisen in relation to some applications for resources, the Department is currently reviewing the process of allocation of additional resources to children with special educational needs. It is predicted that new systems that will be put in place will significantly reduce the demand for individual psychological assessments. When that happens, NEPS will re-evaluate the need for contracted assessments and will review the scheme with a view to ascertaining if there are features of that service which might be adopted by NEPS.

The Accounting Officer in a general comment on the delivery of assessments stated that referral for psychological assessment is a significant, and sometimes alarming, event for parent and child. An individual psychological assessment should only take place if the child's needs truly justify it.

Support and Development Work

The Planning Group recognised that the response of psychologists to student needs cannot occur in isolation and identified the need for working relationships with parents, teachers and the whole school. Its report focused on support and development work in this context as increasingly relevant and necessary for the benefit of students. This work includes:

·Encouraging systematic change in schools as a preventative and development strategy in relation to learning and behaviour difficulties of groups of students

·Working with parents and teachers on discipline and behaviour policy

·Contributing to the enhancement of teachers' skills in identifying student needs

·Accessing and communicating information on research into good practice and alternative strategies

·Contributing to in-career development of teachers on relevant issues

·Engaging in research and development work on particular strategies or development of particular projects related to the work of psychologists in schools.

The group proposed as a target that 35% of psychologists' time be spent on this work.

Measuring Performance

As I was concerned by the apparent lack of quantified targets for the delivery of NEPS services, I asked the Accounting Officer for details of the targets set for the new agency and for an outline of the performance indicators established to confirm their achievement.

Targets

The Accounting Officer informed me that the main target for NEPS, set in the Report of the Planning Group 1998, was that the staffing of NEPS would gradually increase over the five year development period.

At the end of this time, every primary and post-primary school would have access to the NEPS service.The psychologist to student ratio, based on the experience in other jurisdictions and on an estimate of the need for psychological intervention, would be 1:5,000. Psychologists would devote 65% of their time in schools to casework and 35% to support and development work. Beginning in September 2003, NEPS will specify a target number of days to be spent in schools by each psychologist.

Table 7.22 gives the targets for number of students to be covered by each psychologist.

Table 7.22 Planned Number of Students per Psychologist

End of Year	2000	2001	2002	2003
Post-primary schools only	15,000	11,000	8,000	5,000
Primary and post-primary schools	7,000	6,500	6,000	5,000

The service has been established in all 10 regions, six regional headquarters are operational, seven Regional Directors have been appointed and a further competition is imminent. Each regional headquarters is to have its own professional and administrative structure.

Performance Indicators

The Accounting Officer said that performance indicators for NEPS were implied in the Government decision to establish the service and the phased deployment of psychologists and supportstaff. While the Department has not itself formally established targets, senior officials of the Department are members of the NEPS Management Committee and monitor the objectives and performance of NEPS on a regular basis.

He further stated that NEPS has identified the following performance indicators:

·The number of psychologists in place, monitored by the Department's Personnel Section and by NEPS management

·The number of schools and students with a ccess to the NEPS service, recorded in the NEPS Weighting Database and in the scheme Database

·The number of disadvantaged schools and schools of greatest need covered, monitored by Regional Directors, through the Weighting Database

·The number of visits made to schools and the number of interviews that take place. Since the establishment of NEPS, this information has been routinely gathered from psychologists at the end of each school year

·The number of support activities, seminars etc, held each year. This information is being gathered from psychologists as part of their report on the 2002/03 school year, and will be included in the reporting template from now on.

·The time it takes for children with urgent need to be seen by a psychologist. This information is not gathered, as psychologists give priority to urgent cases. These will be seen within weeks if not days.

·The time it takes psychologists to produce their reports. This information will be available in future through the CASETRACK system.

·Production of policy documents, guidelines on procedures, reports of working groups. The evidence is in the number of documents produced.

Individual psychologists and administrative staff set annual targets and performance indicators in the context of the Performance Management and Development System and their service planning.

At the end of the school year 2001/02, the NEPS management team agreed on a number of minimum critical specifications with performance indicators that were to be achieved during the school year 2002/03, under the headings: Model of Service, Development of Team Structures, Professional Supervision, Evaluation and Record Keeping.

The Accounting Officer in response to my request for details of targets for specific activity areas stated that:

·Targets have not been set for the annual number of individual psychological assessments to be carried out as they are considered inappropriate in the context of the development of the NEPS Model of Service. As individual assessment is more costly when compared to the more indirect casework approach which assists more children in less time, NEPS has decided to set targets,beginning with the school year 2003/04 for the amount of time spent in schools on casework.

·A target has not been set for maximum waiting time for assessments, as NEPS believes a more appropriate measure is maximum waiting time for a response to a referral. Consultation and advice to the teacher and/or parent may obviate the need for an individual psychological assessment. NEPS will be setting targets for response time in the context of its Quality Customer Service Statement.

·Consultations with teachers may be related to cases involving teacher(s) and parent(s) of individual children or general issues that arise for teachers e.g. about behavioural management, programme development, special educational needs, responding to critical incidents, school climate. Psychologists are expected to devote 35% of their time in schools to this latter support and development work. A weekly activity journal maintained by each psychologist facilitates monitoring progress towards this target.

·There is no general target for the number of training courses / special projects, although individual psychologists will set targets in the course of the service planning process.

He indicated that in late 2002, NEPS published its Quality Customer Service Statement, which sets targets and performance indicators in such areas as response times to telephone calls and letters. Achievement of these will be dependent upon the availability of adequate administrative support. In relation to the other activities mentioned above, NEPS has undertaken to examine each and to decide what targets should be set and at what level.

The role of Management Information Systems in Measuring Performance

The Accounting Officer, commenting on whether the NEPS Information and Communications Technology (ICT)/Management Information System (MIS) supports the collection of data to enable it measure performance, stated that:

·The CASETRACK system, when fully working, will provide details of the time lapse between

·first referral and response from NEPS

·assessment and production of the psychological report.

·The NEPS Weighting Database is one year old and is currently being reviewed and amended. NEPS recognises that equity in numbers of students per psychologist would not necessarily mean equity in quantity of work and has identified as a task for 2003/04 the need to set targets for ratios in terms of weighting points.

On the general issue of Administration and ICT, he pointed out that, in hindsight, the 1999 administrative staffing proposals for NEPS were inadequate and ineffective to support such a major undertaking. No provision had been made for dedicated ICT staff. NEPS had to wait for approximately 2 years before the first dedicated ICT member of staff was assigned in late 2001. The current NEPS IT Unit is essentially an infrastructural development and technical support unit and is heavily involved in the development and roll-out of a separate NEPS network linked to the Department's network. It also supports NEPS staff in relation to hardware and software.

While the Department's IT Unit has been able to progress a few MIS projects on an ad hoc basis since the establishment of NEPS (CASETRACK, for example, has its origins in an initiative, before NEPS was set up, between Departmental psychologists and the Unit), it is not in a position to assist agencies such as NEPS in planning the development of their MIS. There is a clear and pressing need for the development of appropriate MIS to support financial management as current resources only permit basic systems.

The Department intends very shortly to review a draft Request for Tender for a full ICT plan for NEPS as well as a proposal to create a post of manager of the overall IT function in NEPS.

Mr. John Purcell

This chapter of my report records the results of an examination by my staff of the National Educational Psychological Service, which was set up in September 1999 as an executive agency to provide psychological services for all primary and post-primary schools. The examination sought to establish how, in the early stages, the agency was fulfilling its mandate and the steps it had taken to put systems in place to measure its performance.

The plan for the organisation involved building to a considerable extent on the number of psychologists already working in the education sector and to move to a position by the end of August this year of having one psychologist for every 5,000 pupils. That was a ratio recommended on the basis of international experience. This would equate to a staffing level of around 184 or so professional psychologists in the organisation.

In the first few years, however, the organisation struggled in its efforts to recruit the requisite staff and, more recently, limits on public sector numbers have had an impact. My information is that 129 psychologists are employed, or slightly less than that in whole-time equivalents. Clearly, this shortfall has repercussions on the quantum of services that can be provided, the most obvious being the failure to provide a nationwide service of the requisite quality to all primary schools. In terms of coverage, the problem mainly is at primary school level.

When I compiled my report some 15 months ago, 62% of all schools were covered by this service, representing 79% of pupils, but in the interim I understand there has been some slight slippage on those figures. What this means is that the full range of services, including developing and implementing whole-school strategies relating to educational psychology and in-service training in schools, is not being undertaken in many schools five years down the road.

To partly counteract the effects of this gap in coverage the agency has had a scheme in operation whereby primary schools with no access to the agency psychologists may commission psychological assessment for individual pupils from an approved panel of private practitioners. The scheme may also be used where there is a backlog of urgent referrals for special needs education.

While the scheme of commissioned assessments has been successful when looked at in isolation, it does not meet the overall thrust of the organisation's current strategy, which is to enhance the capacity of schools to prevent failure and in this way indirectly help many more children than could be met individually by psychologists. The fact is that the agency psychologists are not in a position to carry out the level of support and development work that would underpin such a strategy. In that context, although originally envisaged as a stop-gap measure, the perceived success of the commissioned assessments scheme, coupled with possible cost advantages, suggests that consideration should be given to the more flexible use of private practitioners as an integral part of the direct assessment element of the scheme.

On the broader front, in my report I draw attention to organisational and technology shortcomings in the management information framework which would be expected to support the development of the new service. There has not been as much progress in that line as we might have hoped for, although some data are now being produced from the case-track system on the breakdown of the psychologists' time and the numbers and types of cases dealt with. No doubt the new strategic plan of the agency, which I understand is in the course of preparation, will incorporate meaningful targets and performance indicators to measure its success in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

Mr. John Dennehy

As a new agency, the National Educational Psychological Service has faced the huge challenge of developing an organisational infrastructure and administrative framework required to effectively underpin a full range of psychological services to schools and their pupils. This process dates back to September 1998 when a planning group recommended the establishment of a national educational psychological service agency, NEPS. The group recommended the NEPS be established as an executive agency, operationally separate from other divisions and sections of the Department and responsible, through a board, to the Minister.

A target of 200 educational psychologists working in the education sector was set, of whom approximately 180 would be in NEPS, working in ten regions. This would allow for an average psychologist-student ratio of 1:5,000. It was intended that this target would be achieved over a five-year development period. In February 1999, the Government agreed to the establishment of the new NEPS agency and it came into being in September 1999. Since that date, NEPS has developed a nationwide network of local and regional offices in co-operation with the Department of Education and Science and the Office of Public Works.

At present, NEPS has 129 psychologists, including three additional psychologists who joined NEPS on Monday of this week. One of these has been assigned to the Limerick office, one to the Cork office and one to the Wexford office. In all, these psychologists provide a psychological service to 659 second-level schools and 1,728 primary schools. Approximately 60% of all mainstream schools and 74% of pupils now have access to the full psychological service provided by NEPS. All other schools have access to the scheme for commissioning psychological assessments, which is also funded by the State.

NEPS psychologists have a target, set by the planning group, of spending 65% of their time in schools on individual casework, including assessment work, and 35% on support and development work. The psychologists are gradually making progress towards this target. However, the major factor that has prevented them from achieving it completely has been the heavy demand in schools for individual psychological assessments.

While the service being provided is not yet universal, the rollout must be seen in the context of the draft five-year expansion plan submitted to the Minister in April 2000. This plan made it clear that expansion to all schools had to occur gradually over a period.

In the interim, a scheme for commissioning psychological assessments, or SCPA, was introduced in 2001 to meet the demand for assessments in schools that did not yet have access to the NEPS service. Under this scheme, individual psychological assessments are carried out in those schools by private practitioners, strictly on a fee per assessment basis. At the request of the Comptroller and Auditor General, a comparative unit cost of a NEPS assessment and an SCPA assessment has been completed. The results of this exercise are now available. The unit cost of an SCPA assessment was found to be €371 and that of a NEPS assessment €801. While there are clear and legitimate reasons for the disparity of the costs, the main point to be noted is that this cost comparison is between two totally different models of assessment. The SCPA model usually involves a single visit to a school with the purpose of administering psychometric tests, meeting parents and teachers, followed by the production of a report. This is useful for those cases where the sole purpose of assessment is to provide a diagnostic description of the pupil that may be used for the purpose of accessing additional resources.

The NEPS model of assessment is a multi-staged model that aims to provide a framework to help schools to meet their statutory obligations in relation to, in the first instance, identifying and then assessing and making provision for children with special educational needs. This latter approach follows best international practice.

Within this model, the NEPS response to a high proportion of referrals is the provision of advice to teachers and parents on assessment, identification and remedial strategies which will be provided by the school itself. NEPS psychologists only meet a student if school-based assessment and intervention have proved to be insufficient to ameliorate the presenting problem. The consequence of this is that the kind of assessment work undertaken by NEPS usually relates to complex cases that need extended assessment and follow through. A survey carried out in NEPS in May 2004 indicated that the average time required by a NEPS psychologist for an assessment of this kind was 11.15 hours, with quite a number of cases requiring considerably more than that.

Given the workload I have indicated, to ensure equity when assigning schools to psychologists and to enable them to plan their allocation of time to each school, NEPS has moved from the psychologist-student ratio cited earlier to a psychologist-points ratio. For this purpose, NEPS, along with the Department's information technology, IT, section, has developed a weighting database that assigns points to each school on the basis of pupil enrolment, school level, whether primary or post-primary, level of disadvantage, and incidence of special needs. The current average number of points per basic grade psychologist is just under 12,000. This actually amounts to about 5,000 students on average.

In the interests of equity and transparency, it was proposed that newly appointed psychologists would be shared among the regions on a pro rata basis until each region had reached its target staffing quota. Within each region, priorities for inclusion in NEPS coverage are informed by the Department’s projections and statistics, complemented by further local research. Some regions have higher numbers of psychologists and a more satisfactory coverage of schools than others. This is related to the difficulty in recruiting staff to certain regions, most notably the mid-western region. This is a source of particular concern. NEPS management is making every effort to persuade newly recruited psychologists to agree to assignment to one of the four priority regions. These priority regions are the mid-west, the north west, the south east and the south-west area of the eastern region.

However, because of the experience required for entry to NEPS, most new recruits are already in full-time paid employment and have established family commitments. If they are asked to relocate to any area other than their current location, they may decide not to take up employment in NEPS. In the past six months, for example, four psychologists from the panel have declined the offer of employment for this reason.

In addition to the assigned work in schools, NEPS has made a major contribution to the general departmental review on resource allocation for special educational needs in an effort to ensure speedy, efficient and cost-effective responses to the needs of children. NEPS is also working closely with the new national council for special education during its roll-out phase. In particular, it plays a pivotal role in the induction of the special education needs organisers.

The forthcoming changes in special education provision will enable NEPS to devote more time to support and development work. This will further enhance the capacity of schools to identify and address learning, emotional and behavioural difficulties as early as possible, thus preventing school failure and, in many cases, obviating the need for further psychological intervention at a later stage. This strategy means that NEPS can indirectly help many more children than if a psychologist had to meet each child individually.

As psychological services for children are also provided by the health boards and certain voluntary bodies, a working group, including personnel from NEPS and the health boards, reported in September 2002 on joint structures and procedures to ensure the most efficient and effective use of psychological resources. A joint national steering committee has been established to oversee implementation of the report and a series of joint meetings in all the health board regions is developing agreements on protocols.

Work on the development of IT infrastructure and on identifying and managing the information needs of NEPS to reflect its positioning in the wider Department system is ongoing. An intensive process of strategic review, including consultations with relevant sections of the Department and other stakeholders, is under way on NEPS, and IT planning issues form a core part of that process. NEPS continues to address the key issue of putting in place the infrastructure required to ensure a high level of support for children who require psychological support in our educational system.

Chairman

May Mr. Dennehy's statement be published?

Mr. Dennehy

Of course.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Dennehy. Could he comment on why the service has remained so poor in the mid-west region, particularly in Limerick, Clare and Tipperary? I welcome the appointment of the extra psychologists.

Mr. Dennehy

It is our intention that, as soon as other psychologists become available to work in that area, they will be assigned there. I will hand over to the acting director who may have more detailed knowledge in this regard. The main reason is we have been experiencing great difficulty recruiting people of sufficiently high calibre to work in that region. Perhaps, more detailed information will be available through the acting director.

Chairman

I will allow the acting director to contribute shortly. The University of Limerick has no problem recruiting people who have analogous or even superior academic qualifications. They move with their families to Limerick. Multinational companies, which have highly qualified staff, have a queue of people applying. They choose between a number of people who are highly qualified. A list of eminently qualified consultants, usually from the United States, apply to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital for jobs. Is there something wrong with the Department's recruitment system? Mr. Dennehy made a peculiar comment when he stated people who are recruited sometimes will refuse to be assigned to a particular region. Other agencies hire people for a particular region.

Mr. Dennehy

We have been making every effort to do so. The health boards are experiencing a similar difficulty recruiting psychologists, speech therapists and so on.

Chairman

There is a shortage of speech therapists nationwide and health boards have a difficulty in all the major cities employing social workers. I do not accept there is a difficulty in the mid-west because qualified psychologists will not live there. That does not stand up to scrutiny when one examines analogous employment in the region. The Department's recruitment policy is flawed in that it suggests NEPS should hire people into a national agency and then assign them to a location to which they can refuse to go. People should be hired to work in a particular location.

Mr. Dennehy

My understanding is every effort is made by NEPS to recruit people in areas to which it is difficult to assign people. I would value the comments of the acting director in this regard.

Chairman

The more information we get, the better.

Ms Lee MacCurtain

I find it difficult to explain the shortfall. I cannot add much to what the Secretary General said. However, I understand from the Department's personnel section that regional panels will be established following future competitions and that will enable us to recruit for the priority regions from those panels rather than taking people from the top of the national panel and going downwards.

Chairman

The discrepancy is significant. Coverage in the eastern region is between 75% and 80%, depending on which subdivision of Dublin or the east one takes, whereas coverage in the mid-west region is 45%. What will the extra psychologists do? What would be the impact of one psychologist in the region in terms of extra coverage?

Ms MacCurtain

The impact would be approximately 5%.

Chairman

What plans are in place to achieve the national average in the mid-west?

Mr. Dennehy

A number of things are happening in regard to special needs. The Special Education Council has been established and will take over responsibility for much of the general special education work. Following its establishment, a major review is being undertaken of NEPS, the allocation of psychologists, in particular where there are shortages, and what strategies can be put in place to ensure we recruit additional people there. This must also happen within the context of public service numbers and budgetary constraints. Our recently appointed Minister has asked to meet the management of NEPS and departmental officials in the coming weeks to tease out these issues within the context of public service numbers and budgetary constraints.

Chairman

I do not accept that. A significant number of emotionally disturbed children live in the region, particularly in Limerick city. I do not need to recite the background to this issue. We politely pressed for extra psychologists for quite a while and there has been little response from the Department or NEPS. If the public sector, through NEPS, cannot deliver the service needed in the city and the surrounding area, we will have to go to the private sector. It is not acceptable.

Deputy Rabbitte

I thank Mr. Dennehy for his comprehensive statement. Do I understand that the net point regarding this valuable initiative and badly needed development is that psychological assessment is the ticket to additional resources? Has that been the situation?

Mr. Dennehy

That has been the situation but it will not be in future.

Deputy Rabbitte

Why will it change?

Mr. Dennehy

It will change because of a new system, which is a weighted model being introduced for the allocation of resources to schools whereby, on the basis of a predetermined percentage, schools will be allocated additional teaching resources. A number of other factors will be taken into consideration, for example, disadvantaged status and so on, to allocate resources to schools with children with higher dependence, children experiencing mild learning difficulty, for example, and children who traditionally would require remedial teaching. Thereafter, children in the lower incidence, such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and so on, will be required to have an individual psychological assessment, thereby reducing considerably the number of children who will require a psychological assessment for the allocation of resources.

When I was a principal of a school, if my staff had a slow learner, I had great difficulty trying to prevent them from demanding a full psychological assessment. Sometimes teachers see the solution as a full psychological assessment, which ties up psychologists, while what may be required is different teaching strategies and different learning plans prepared for the child. This is an important aspect of NEPS work. It hopes to work with staff, principals and learning support teachers within the schools to try to ensure that children who need psychological assessments will get them without delay and that those who do not need them will not tie up valuable resources.

Deputy Rabbitte

Sceptical teachers and angry parents have said to me that they have not been able to get past the first hurdle and employ a special needs teacher in a school or whatever without a psychological assessment. Now that the service has significantly improved, although it is still patchy, as the Chairman pointed out, and the psychologists are in place, the Department has abolished the need for the psychological test.

Mr. Dennehy

No, it is just in some cases. We have struggled with this. Within the NEPS inspectorate and the special needs section of the Department, there are extremely dedicated people who have struggled day and night with this exercise to try to find a way of answering the need that appears to exist. In 1998, when the automatic response to special needs was introduced by the Government, there was an insatiable appetite for extra resources in schools. I am not talking about the serious cases referred to earlier. I am talking about slow learners and children who experience relatively minor learning difficulties within the classroom. There was an insatiable appetite for a psychological report because people wanted a bit of that too — a resource teacher or a special needs assistant or whatever. At one stage we used our inspectorate to evaluate the applications we received. Early in 2000 and 2001, we were receiving so many applications from schools that, in consultation with the school authorities, we had to allow them to sign off on the applications, otherwise our inspectors or NEPS people would delay the thing inordinately because of the workload involved.

When we allowed the schools to certify themselves, the number of applications mushroomed. We carried out spot checks and discovered there was huge over-representation of facts regarding children alleged to be in need.

Deputy Rabbitte

A number of applications for what?

Mr. Dennehy

For resource teachers or special needs assistants. During the period since 1998, the improvement has been enormous. There are now almost 3,000 resource teachers in the system while in 1998 there were just more than 100. The latest figures indicate that there are almost 6,000 special needs assistants, SNAs, in the system, while there were 300 in 1998. There are an extra 1,000 teachers in special schools, more than 600 teachers in special classes and 1,500 learning support teachers. We are examining all sorts of options, including looking at international best practice and talking to our colleagues in Northern Ireland and much further afield to try to devise a system which will be more equitable and which will respond to the needs of children. While we might be civil servants and detached from the problems that exist in schools, uppermost in our mind is the individual children whose life chances can be greatly affected if we cannot respond to their legitimate needs.

Deputy Rabbitte

That is a remarkable rate of improvement in terms of resource provision in what was a pretty desperate need. Someone told me that the provision in Limerick should have been 16 instead of five. Does this mean that areas throughout the country which have not been provided for properly have also not been properly provided for in the appointment of resource teachers, special needs assistants and so on or is Mr. Dennehy saying that the change in the system has picked that up and they got their resource teachers anyway?

Mr. Dennehy

The change in the system has picked it up. I spoke with people from NEPS yesterday and we are pretty certain that we have picked up on any difficult cases in schools throughout the country. I take the point the Chairman and the Deputy have made. In the review of NEPS and our response generally to special educational needs, which we are undertaking and on which we are working closely with the Minister, my priority will be to ensure that where there is not an adequate response or provision, we will do everything in our power to provide that support in the context of the resources available to us. I must keep repeating myself because, as the Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out, 129 psychologists are in place as against the recommended number of 184. In light of the automatic response in 1998, 184 was a low estimate because we probably need a greater number. We are working within the context of the cap on public service numbers and the budgetary constraints.

Having been present with the Minister during meetings with the current and previous Ministers for Finance and the Taoiseach, the whole issue of special educational needs is extremely high on the agenda.

Deputy Rabbitte

On his remarks about self-certification and so on, is Mr. Dennehy saying it is the professional assessment of the Department that in some cases requests were made for special resources and appointments that were not necessary?

Mr. Dennehy

That is correct. In some cases where schools were allowed to sign off on what they felt they required in regard to special needs assistants or resource teachers, given my experience as a school principal, one would try to get the best level of additional staffing resource possible for the children. It is with the very best motive that, in borderline cases, staff err on the side of seeking the resource.

Deputy Rabbitte

Let us suppose I am such a school principal who was granted an extra post when the land was flowing with milk and honey and we were fortunate to be so well led. Under the new weighted system, if my psychologist decided to decentralise, for example, could I lose that post?

Mr. Dennehy

That could happen. It was envisaged that a large number of schools would lose the supports they had. Posts currently in place will not be lost until September 2005 so we have the best part of a year. The Minister is unhappy, as are others including me, that schools would have resources taken from them. We must look carefully at the requirements and needs of schools. Some schools may not require the resources they have but others may continue to require those resources or a percentage of them. We must look very carefully at that issue.

Deputy Rabbitte

Did the previous Minister make that commitment and is Mr. Dennehy saying the new Minister is reviewing it?

Mr. Dennehy

The previous Minister worked on this issue with the staff in the Department, the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and others. We were at the stage of finalising a package when the new Minister was appointed. I am not saying the former Minister would have given final approval to that package. The current Minister certainly has not. Our current instruction is that we radically review every one of those cases. The Minister is playing a leading part in this exercise.

The review is to take place in very close co-operation with a new force on the ground and which I am convinced will help greatly in some of the issues raised by the Chairman. We have established the National Council for Special Education, which recently recruited special education needs organisers all over the country, including the mid-west region. These organisers will be based locally throughout the country. Future requests for special education resources will be processed, in the first instance, through them. They will then either work with NEPS in making recommendations on the issue or make recommendations directly to the Department.

Deputy Rabbitte

Does NEPS have an existence independent of the Department? Was it intended to be a statutory agency?

Mr. Dennehy

It was. It was initially established on an administrative basis. It has significant operational independence from the Department but it remains technically within the ambit of the Department of Education and Science. The original plan was that after several years when the agency had settled in and was fully up and running, under section 54 of the Education Act the option would exist for setting up the agency on a statutory basis totally independent of the Department. This approach was taken in the case of the State Examinations Commission and the National Council for Special Education, which I have mentioned. The view of the Department in the past year or two, and in consultation with NEPS, has been that it would be prudent to wait until the National Council for Special Education was fully operational. In that context and in the context of the major review of NEPS being undertaken at present, decisions can then be made as to whether a statutory model or the current model is the better option.

Deputy Rabbitte

If two or three extra psychologists were appointed to the mid-west region, from where would they function?

Mr. Dennehy

To be effective they would have to function from Limerick, Ennis or somewhere central to that area.

Deputy Rabbitte

Would they work from a Department of Education and Science premises?

Mr. Dennehy

Correct. At present there are two different types of office from which the NEPS people operate. In some locations they are operating from dedicated offices that are under the NEPS banner. The Department has also set up ten regional offices. Wherever there is a regional office, either now or in the future, NEPS people will operate out of that regional office. They will then work in close contact and co-operation with their colleagues from the Department, the welfare board and the special education council. All the bits of the jigsaw will be brought together.

Deputy Rabbitte

Did I understand the Comptroller and Auditor General to say that in some respects the operation of NEPS is not meeting the thrust of its original purpose and that there should, therefore, be more flexible use of access to the private service? What is Mr. Dennehy's response to that?

Mr. Dennehy

It is a very good suggestion. I have spoken to our own people on the special education inspectorate side in the Department and with the NEPS people with regard to examining it in great detail in the context of the review of NEPS. Where a psychological service is not readily available for those children who critically need it, it is wrong that our response under the commissioned assessment system is not sufficiently flexible. We should make sure that it is more flexible and more available.

Deputy Rabbitte

The task required of the private service is more limited than the input of a psychologist employed by NEPS.

Mr. Dennehy

It is entirely more limited. It is a very different kind of operation from the one in which NEPS is engaged. The main purpose of the person appointed to do the commissioned assessment is to provide the report. He or she comes to the school, meets the teacher, the parent of the child and perhaps the school principal. He or she then conducts a relatively restricted assessment of the child and writes the report. I say relatively restricted. It is still a psychological assessment but it would not be as elaborate as a report on the more serious cases with which NEPS would deal. Even in a school that currently does not have coverage from a NEPS psychologist and where we might meet some of the more serious cases, it is my understanding that a NEPS psychologist quite often makes a special visit and does the more detailed psychological assessment.

Deputy Rabbitte

Can Mr. Dennehy say a word about the overlap between the health boards and the joint national steering group? How is the demarcation between the health boards and the Department of Education and Science delineated? Are chronic cases the remit of the health boards and more normal school learning problems dealt with by NEPS? How are they demarcated?

Mr. Dennehy

My colleague has more detailed information on that matter.

Ms MacCurtain

On the whole, the more serious problems are referred to health board psychologists. Cases involving children's autistic spectrum disorder or ADHD would probably need an input from both services — the NEPS psychologist to follow up in school and oversee the programme and the health board psychologist to do an individual diagnostic assessment. In each area we are trying to establish a child services matrix in order that with regard to autism we will be able to see exactly what the health board is providing in a community care area and will be able to ensure there is no duplication or not too many gaps in what we are providing in each area. This is still a work in progress.

Deputy Rabbitte

What results can be expected from this ongoing review? Will or is anything likely to change?

Ms MacCurtain

There have been changes already. There is a lot of liaison at community care level, particularly with regard to individual children. We are also concerned about the prevalence of emotional and behavioural disorders for which a joint strategy is probably needed in schools. In this regard, we have engaged in joint continuing professional development.

Deputy Rabbitte

Is Ms MacCurtain saying the weighted system may lead to a resource teacher or a couple of special needs assistants being taken from one of the well run schools in my constituency which serve a more congenial environment than some of the other schools in my constituency which are well run but which sometimes under adverse conditions face multiple problems and placed in a school where the need is more manifest?

Ms MacCurtain

I cannot really answer that question. It is for the Secretary General to answer.

Deputy Rabbitte

I thought NEPS had an independent existence.

Ms MacCurtain

Not yet.

Mr. Dennehy

Semi-independent. The most important point is that from now until next September no resources will be taken from any school. This gives us time to look carefully at the resources being allocated to schools. We could not justify leaving resources in a school not in a disadvantaged area which does not need them for individual children within the school while other schools which are far more disadvantaged or face far more difficult circumstances need them. Resources should be directed where they are most needed.

Chairman

Special educational needs organisers for each region were mentioned. Has this initiative being introduced?

Mr. Dennehy

A statutory agency, the special education council, has been established. It has recruited 70 special educational needs organisers who are in the final stages of training. The council is also involved with the Department in the assessment of special needs assistant allocations. The council will become fully operational from 1 January 2005 at the latest.

Chairman

What is the general background of those recruited?

Mr. Dennehy

Some are teachers, some are social workers while others come from a health sector background. There is a variety. I understand, in spite of what I said on the issue of psychologists in particular, that there was a large response to the recruitment campaign and that there will be an even distribution around the country.

Deputy Ardagh

When exactly did the NEPS start? A five year programme was to be put in place. On what date did that five year term end?

Mr. Dennehy

At the end of September 2004. The programme started in 1999.

Deputy Ardagh

Was it initially anticipated that the service would have 200 psychologists after five years?

Mr. Dennehy

Yes, approximately 184 of whom would be NEPS psychologists. There were other psychologists within the health boards and the VECs in Dublin city and county.

Deputy Ardagh

The number achieved is 129. Does Mr. Dennehy see this as a failure?

Mr. Dennehy

I do not. A decision was taken by the Government in September 2003 to place a cap on public service numbers. The limit on public service numbers hit the NEPS just as it did every other section within the Department. Nonetheless, a point constantly made to me by senior staff in the NEPS is that they will have a better service with better trained staff if recruitment is relatively slow. In other words, while it may be seen as too slow, they felt from the outset that employing 200 psychologists from day one or in the first year would have been a great mistake.

Deputy Ardagh

I understand there are now nearly 6,000 special needs assistants in comparison with a figure of 299 in 1998 and that there are approximately 2,500 resource teachers in comparison with a figure of 104 in 1998. How is it possible to consider such large increases great and then make excuses with regard to the number of psychologists?

Mr. Dennehy

I would not accept the word "excuses". I did not come here to make excuses but to give the facts. There was no attempt made by anybody, either within the Department or the NEPS, to slow down the recruitment of psychologists.

With regard to the numbers of resource teachers and special needs assistants, a particular Government decision was taken in 1998. Since then, there has been what is regarded as an automatic response. However, this has not obviated the need with regard to some of the more recent additional numbers sanctioned. It has not obviated the need for us to discuss the issue with our colleagues in the Department of Finance and obtain formal sanction to recruit those additional resource teachers or special needs assistants.

Deputy Ardagh

I accept there was no purposeful decision taken to reduce numbers. However, as special needs assistant and resource teacher numbers increased, why was there no positive action to increase the number of psychologists?

Mr. Dennehy

This is almost like the position in some of the health board areas. Within schools there is what we would describe as, and what the committee would know as, a demand-led situation. If, for example, 20 or 30 children, or whatever the required number is, turned up in a school, the Department could not refuse to sanction a teacher. If the school has the required number, it will have automatic permission to advertise for and appoint a teacher within the rules and regulations. The same applies to children and special needs resources. However, the adults, psychologists, special needs organisers and the others, come within the same rules and regulations as the rest of us civil servants. When there is some kind of cap on the recruitment of civil servants, unfortunately, the situation in respect of psychologists becomes tied up and tangled up in that. I agree with the Deputy that if more psychologists are needed, then we should find a way of trying to ensure that we can get permission to appoint them.

Deputy Ardagh

There is great work being done for people with ADHD, autistic children and people with Down's syndrome. The use of special needs assistants and resource teachers results in such children achieving greatly even at junior certificate and senior certificate level. It is a cause of great pride that this is happening. Ms MacCurtain referred earlier to the emotional and behavioural disorders prevalent among children. Like that of Deputy Rabbitte and the Chairman, my constituency has schools at both ends of the spectrum. The question of child poverty arises. Some children come to school with a vacant look on their faces. They probably have not had breakfast and may come from a dysfunctional family where there is no motivation for education. I regard the question of the weighting of allocation of psychologists as being very important. I would like to have more information on the weighting system used. It was previously one per 5,000 pupils and now it is the points system. The question of disadvantage should weigh very heavily. What is the weighting and how is it decided in respect of the points system which it is proposed to adopt?

Ms MacCurtain

We have used the Department's primary and post-primary databases as the basis for our own database. We weight schools according to a number of factors which the Secretary General listed in his opening speech. Disadvantage is one of those.

Deputy Ardagh

It seems to be at the bottom of the list rather than at the top.

Mr. Dennehy

I think that is accidental.

Deputy Ardagh

What is the weighting? Would it have more weighting than pupil enrolment or whether a school is a primary or secondary school? How does a school earn points for allocation of psychologists?

Ms MacCurtain

As it is based first of all on the enrolment, obviously a larger school will need a higher level of service. It is based on whether the school is primary or post-primary because at the moment we give a higher weighting to primary schools. The third consideration is whether it is the first year for the school to have a NEPS service because we consider the first year will contain a backlog of work so it should have a higher points weighting. We use the designation of disadvantage according to the four bands identified by the Educational Research Centre.

Deputy Ardagh

What are the four bands? What should they measure?

Ms MacCurtain

They measure level of disadvantage, degree of disadvantage, according to certain objective criteria laid down by the Educational Research Centre. In terms of our roll-out, we decided under the terms of the Department's general policy on inclusion, to give priority first of all to what was then the stay in school retention initiative and is now the school completion programme, in very disadvantaged areas. We took those post-primary schools and their feeder primary schools as clusters which we would target in our initial roll-out and we have kept to that plan. We have a high coverage of disadvantaged schools relative to our coverage of other types of schools.

Deputy Ardagh

Does NEPS co-operate with the health boards? Does it work with the health boards on the question of disadvantaged schools where pupils have psychological problems and where the solution may be the provision of certain health services as well as services provided by NEPS?

Ms MacCurtain

We have a great deal of co-operation at community care level in the cases of problems experienced by individual children and individual schools. The co-operation varies from health board region to health board region because no two health boards operate in exactly the same way. The reason for the recent initiative, the joint regional seminars, is to see what more can be done at a more structural and systems level to improve co-operation.

Deputy Ardagh

Currently NEPS has a target of spending 65% of time on individual case work and 35% on support and development. In the schools to which I referred, it would appear that the support and development aspect requires a greater weighting than in other schools because the problems of the children who are emotionally and behaviourally disordered can be addressed through the parents and the teachers. Many changes might take place in the physical environment, the built environment, the home and school environment, rather than on the approach adopted by an individual psychologist.

Ms MacCurtain

I agree entirely with the Deputy's view and that would certainly be our aim. One difficulty is that, as the Secretary General has already indicated, sometimes schools feel that if they only had more resources, then they could deal with the problems. As the Deputy observed, it is often the more systemic approach that is needed in the school and this is particularly true in the cases of emotional and behavioural disorder where an individual psychological assessment would do very little towards ameliorating the situation that the child is in. We need to work also with parent and teachers and other agencies.

Deputy Ardagh

The unit cost of a psychological assessment was stated as €801 for the NEPS psychologist and €371 for the private psychologist. Mr. Dennehy has given some explanation of that cost in so far as the difficulty and breadth of investigation would be greater but it still seems to be a significant divergence in cost. Has the witness any comment to make?

Ms MacCurtain

Yes. Certain costs were ascribed to the NEPS assessment because it supports the work in schools. Those costs include the continuing professional development programme, the time spent on professional supervision, the time spent on team meetings. These all support the assessment work but would not be costed into the SPCA assessment.

Deputy Ardagh

If those costs were excluded from the SPCA system, would the costs then be comparable?

Mr. Dennehy

My understanding is that they would be. I discussed it with the Department's accounting staff this morning. The costs would be relatively close. Another matter is worth pointing out. My information also is that while we have set a fee of €371 for a commissioned assessment — that is what we pay or NEPS pays for it — many psychologists working in private practice who do a psychological assessment, charge €800 or €900 to do that.

Deputy Ardagh

The question of using information technology to collate casework and getting information is always under review and developing. I do not know whether such information is useful or relevant or whether it is just additional information that is being generated. Is the Department of Education and Science on top of IT in its management information systems?

Mr. Dennehy

We are as on top as any other Department at the moment. We could always do with additional IT people and with additional IT programmes. Within our Department the IT unit provides an IT service to the entire Department and obviously there are always competing demands for expansion of that including a number of areas like a major database that we want to set up now for primary schools. We have the biggest IT system in the country regarding our payroll. Rather we have the biggest payroll; it may not be the biggest IT system. In addition to that we have a huge database supporting much of the Department's teacher numbers, payroll, human resource management system and so on as well as the new financial management system, which has not been without its teething troubles in our Department.

At the moment the IT unit within the Department is looking at how we can, as it were, do more for NEPS into the coming years. At the moment we are involved both with a client tracking database that we have established or that the IT unit has established for them, which is networked and it provides people to operate on a stand-alone basis, and the waiting database the Deputy mentioned earlier. There are requests from NEPS for the further enhancement of its IT systems. This is something the IT managers are considering at the moment in competition with probably 100 other applications. However, NEPS would have a priority in this. It is one we are looking at to see how we can best support it.

The idea at the beginning when NEPS was being established was that when NEPS was set up finally as an independent separate statutory agency it would have its own IT operation. For the moment while it is still within the Department, it is obviously the Department's IT unit that looks after its IT operations.

Deputy Ardagh

Following today's meeting and considering the issues raised by the Chairman, Deputy Rabbitte, myself and others will Mr. Dennehy consider giving greater priority to disadvantaged areas experiencing child poverty?

Mr. Dennehy

It should be at the top of our priority list when we are reviewing NEPS and it is. It is where it should be. I agree with the Deputy totally. My experience as a teacher and as a schools inspector was in areas of disadvantage. Therefore I know firsthand what the issues are and I sympathise very much with some of the points made by the Chairman, Deputy Ardagh, Deputy Rabbitte and others.

Deputy Deasy

I admit that I am not an expert in this area. I have had to come to grips with the issue in the past three or four years. Since becoming a councillor and then a Deputy, the lack of resources available to children with special needs is one of the most horrific matters I have come across. I have made this clear to the new Minister and I hope we will see improvements. I was somewhat surprised to see it on the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Usually we deal with financial reports and value for money issues. This matter could not be put in that category. From listening to people the attitude seems to be that the money in some cases is secondary and what is needed is to put a system in place so that the scheme is operational so that everyone who needs help in this area gets it as quickly as possible. This is probably the crucial factor here.

Has the definition of special needs in the Department' guidelines changed in the past four or five years? Does the Department review the list of conditions defined as being a special need? I am aware of a number of children who under the Department's guidelines are deemed to be outside the definition.

Mr. Dennehy

I was going to say maybe they are, but I do not know. Where we have done individual checks in schools we have identified that in some cases — I absolutely emphasise some cases — there is a demand from schools for a psychological assessment on the one hand or resources on the other hand, where what the child might need is a bit of individualised differentiated teaching rather than the full blown support of a special needs or a resource teacher.

The Deputy asked whether the definition of special needs had changed. It is something that our special education section in consultation with the inspectorate and with NEPS keeps under constant review. One of the priorities of the National Council for Special Education, which has just been established and which I mentioned to the Chairman already, will be to do some research in this area and to advise us — by us I mean to advise the Minister. This is one of the areas in which the National Council for Special Education will work in addition to working on recommendations on resource allocation. I consider the area of research and of providing policy advice to the Minister as very important for the reasons the Deputy mentioned.

Deputy Deasy

It has not changed.

Mr. Dennehy

No, not dramatically. It is constantly under review and there may be some tweaking.

Deputy Deasy

I find that in many cases the children are deemed to be outside the scope of the guidelines.

Mr. Dennehy

In many cases this is something that I feel — I am not saying this in any kind of argumentative way just a factual way — bears being emphasised. When schools were allowed to self-certify for the purposes of the allocation of resources, many of the schools interpreted the circular and the guidelines very liberally. Children came within the ambit that should not have come, to be absolutely direct and straight. When the circulars and the guidelines were subsequently being tightened up a little bit or enforced a little more tightly, then some children dropped out. However, as I mentioned earlier, the Minister is absolutely determined that if there is any individual situation where resources are being removed from a pupil and that pupil still needs the resources, then that pupil will get the resources. We are going to systematically look at every one of those cases.

Deputy Deasy

I will give a perfect example. Mr. Dennehy talked earlier about the joint national steering group, the health board, the health board psychologists and so on. In addition, Ms MacCurtain made a comment which did not ring true in my experience. She stated that in many cases more serious problems were referred to the relevant health board. I encountered a case a couple of weeks ago, about which I have a report in my office, in which a health board psychologist had made a determination with regard to a pupil that was overruled by the Department. As a result of its strict interpretation of the rules, the health board psychologist's determination was discarded. Mr. Dennehy has stated the Minister has determined that every child will be catered for. That is not the case; we have appealed the decision in the case in question twice.

Mr. Dennehy

If we receive a recommendation from a psychologist, we do not overrule or ignore it but ask our psychological service to look at it and give advice to the Minister. If the psychologist working for the State or the Minister advises the Minister in a certain direction, that is the direction we will take. I do not know the case to which the Deputy refers but I will gladly follow it up if he gives me details after the meeting.

Deputy Deasy

I understand the Department must have processes.

Mr. Dennehy

We have processes and rely on our professional advisers.

Deputy Deasy

An individual in a specific case needs finality. I encounter cases in which psychologists' determinations for particular pupils are discarded.

Mr. Dennehy

Is there more than one case?

Deputy Deasy

I have come across two cases, including a very recent one.

Mr. Dennehy

If the Deputy gives me the details afterwards, I will undertake to pursue the matter because I would be very concerned if a psychologist's report was dismissed or ignored.

Deputy Deasy

I will do so. When the Minister sanctioned 295 additional special needs assistants, she made a comment, with which everybody agreed, that the speed of response to special needs applications had been too slow. Mr. Dennehy made an extraordinary comment, which he is free to clarify, in response to Deputy Ardagh's question about staff numbers. He said that in some cases advice had been given that the number of staff in the National Educational Psychological Service should not be increased too quickly because it took time to train them for the various processes involved. He also stated it would be a mistake in some cases to push the number of staff — I believe it was 189 in 2003 — above the 200 mark.

Mr. Dennehy

I did not intend to say that.

Deputy Deasy

Fair enough.

Mr. Dennehy

I said the advice to the Minister in 1999 was that rather than doing everything on the first day, psychologists should be recruited to the NEPS on a phased basis to enable the service to establish itself, train staff properly, draw up protocols and so forth.

Deputy Deasy

The Department's targets, therefore, meant nothing. Could it have hired more psychologists? Did it decide instead to phase in their recruitment?

Mr. Dennehy

No.

Deputy Deasy

Was there not an opportunity to do this?

Mr. Dennehy

No, I am not aware of any such opportunity. The advice to the Minister at the time was that recruitment should take place on a phased basis over a period, which is what was done. More than a year ago recruitment was halted because of the Government decision to place a cap on public service numbers.

Deputy Deasy

Something jumped out at me while reading the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. While it is a matter of hindsight, it is also an important issue. As I stated, I am not as well versed in this area as others present. The Minister's announcement in 1998 concerning automatic entitlements of primary school children with special education needs significantly advanced special needs education, with demand for services subsequently increasing considerably. Were generations of children neglected before 1998? By extension, one makes the assumption that prior to 1998 generations of children were condemned to live with particular conditions. Has an attempt been made to find children ignored by the system?

Mr. Dennehy

I fail to see how the Deputy arrived at the assertion that I had made such a statement.

Deputy Deasy

I did not make an assertion.

Mr. Dennehy

Good. The position is very simple. Those of us in the Department who had been working for many years in the area of special needs education were constantly demanding more and more resources. However, there was a simple question of obtaining sanction for additional posts from Governments of all shades and hues.

Deputy Deasy

I do not wish to be party political.

Mr. Dennehy

Neither do I. A decision was made by the then Minister to go to Government to try to get an automatic response to the needs of such children, which he subsequently did with success. It is not so much the case that demand escalated but that we were able to respond to it. That is what led to increased numbers.

Deputy Deasy

Mr. Dennehy is agreeing with my point that prior to 1998, thousands of children did not receive the care they needed.

Mr. Dennehy

In the special needs area we could have done with more resources in schools prior to 1998.

Deputy Deasy

Is it a waste of time trying to contact the children concerned?

Mr. Dennehy

Subsequent to 1998, many of the children in the system had been in it for many years and their needs were identified at later stages of their education.

Deputy Deasy

The reason I raise this question is that the needs of thousands of children were not identified.

Mr. Dennehy

I am aware of that.

Deputy Deasy

In many cases time is important in that if one fails to identify a child's special educational needs by the age of four, five, six or seven years, it is too late. I have been given figures which indicate that the proportion of students covered by the scheme in April 2003 and August 2004 was 79% and 74%, respectively. In addition, the service was available to 1,790 schools in August 2003 and 1,729 schools in August 2004.

Examining the Department's targets for 2003, to which Deputy Ardagh referred, I found that it had planned to have 184 professional staff on stream in that year, whereas the actual figure was 123. We are now at the end of 2004, yet the presentation indicates the number of professional staff is 129. In some cases the figures dipped but progress towards achieving the target has come to a grinding halt. Is the freeze on public sector recruitment, to which Mr. Dennehy referred, entirely responsible?

Mr. Dennehy

I stated that when the Government decision was taken to cap public service numbers, we could not continue the expansion. I do not know how many professionals would have been employed if the cap had not been introduced. The figure could be 150 or the current figure of 129. The position is that we have 129 professional staff, whereas the original recommendation was that we should have about 184 by this stage. The whole special needs area, including NEPS and the special education council, is under review in the Department. This is obviously one of the issues we will consider. It is high on our agenda.

Deputy Deasy

In my years in politics no other issue has created a higher level of frustration among public representatives, parents and teachers. It is unbelievable.

Mr. Dennehy is not a politician and I understand that ultimately those issues are political decisions. However, he said a couple of times today that this has been, and is, a priority for Government, yet when it comes to a cap on public sector pay it becomes less of a priority. There is a contradiction here. This is a kind of priority when public sector pay is involved. I understand Mr. Dennehy does not make those decisions ultimately but——

Chairman

We cannot discuss policy in this forum.

Deputy Deasy

I was trying not to.

Chairman

We can in the House.

Deputy Deasy

It has been said that it is a priority but this is disgusting parents and teachers.

Mr. Dennehy

I have already put on the record the enormous increase in resources that have been allocated to the special needs area during the period since 1998. In the case of resource teachers in schools, the numbers are up from 104 to almost 3,000. In the case of special needs assistants, the number has increased from 300 to almost 6,000, which is a twentyfold increase. These are just a few of the figures. We are currently spending more than €300 million a year on special needs in first and second level schools and there is no question or doubt about that.

One other figure that might be worth quoting is that in 1998 there were 21,000 primary teachers. Today there are 10,700 adults providing services to children with special needs in classrooms. They were not there in 1998. In other words, 50% of the entire teaching population that existed in 1998 has been added as an additional resource to assist children with special needs. These are, resource teachers, special needs assistants and others. They are not all teachers; they are adults working with children in the classroom. There have been enormous increases in the past six or seven years.

Deputy Deasy

The number of psychologists was limited by the public sector pay freeze. Would a number of people have been hired otherwise? Was there a list of 60 of which the Government was aware at the time but because of the freeze it said this could not be done?

Ms MacCurtain

There was a panel of psychologists in the Civil Service Commission. I am unsure of the actual number that remained on the panel but it was something between 15 and 20 at that time.

Deputy Deasy

Is it the case that those people were not hired?

Ms MacCurtain

They have all been called now.

Deputy Deasy

But at the time?

Ms MacCurtain

At the time there was a delay.

Deputy Deasy

Basically the NEPS was prevented from hiring those people.

Mr. Dennehy

One could put that interpretation on it but the situation is——

Deputy Deasy

My point is this, one cannot set four year targets. Let me clarify this——

Mr. Dennehy

Deputy Deasy's question should be directed to a politician.

Deputy Deasy

Fair enough, that may be so. I am not getting at Mr. Dennehy but he set a target in 1998 and basically the target was shelved. That is essentially what happened.

Mr. Dennehy

Deputy Deasy is putting a form of words and an interpretation on it. Similarly, right across the public service decisions were taken at the time in regard to public service numbers. Nobody deliberately set out to curtail the numbers in NEPS, no more so than in any other organisation. Deputy Deasy is being a bit unfair and twisting the facts a little in putting it that way.

Deputy Deasy

All I meant is that Mr. Dennehy was prevented from reaching his target. Is that the case?

Mr. Dennehy

Yes.

Chairman

The ruling I made is still valid. We are not here to discuss policy.

Mr. Deasy

This is an important point. We are dealing with a report in which targets were set for the initiation of NEPS. I am trying to understand why the targets were not met. It is very clear the Department was prevented from reaching those targets. What is the point in setting targets if one is entirely prevented from reaching them when everyone would agree that this is an absolute priority?

Mr. Dennehy

We set targets every day of the week and as time progresses circumstances very often prevent us reaching them in various areas, which is what happened in this case.

Deputy Boyle

It is fair to say the emphasis of the Comptroller and Auditor General is different from the usual emphasis we see in the Committee of Public Accounts where it is usually a matter of overspend. We appear to be examining the fact that because we did not achieve the outlined framework for whatever reasons, it calls into question the effectiveness of the public expenditure undertaken. The argument could be made that it is really a half loaf or even three-quarters loaf approach to providing public services. When there is a failure to provide proper public services questions arise as to whether the money was well spent in the first instance.

Mr. Dennehy

There may be another question we have to address, that is if we still need 184 NEPS psychologists in the system in light of other changes that have taken place since, including introducing the new system of allocation of resource teachers and the special education council which now has 70 highly qualified people. I accept they are not psychologists but they are experts in this area working on the ground and advising us in regard to resource allocation. I am not saying we will not need 184 psychologists, we may need fewer or a great deal more but this is part of the overall review we are conducting within the Department. I say this in an effort to be helpful.

Deputy Boyle

I hope any such review does not just concentrate on the number of psychologists. The degree to which psychologists can interact with the children concerned is also worth examining. Our experience as members of the committee would inform us there are difficulties because of the way NEPS is structured and because of a lack of resources it may not be structured as efficiently and as effectively as it could be.

We had a debate recently in the Dáil about special needs assistants and the Minister made her decision subsequently about additional positions. Many Members described how decisions were made as to whether special needs assistants were allocated or not, which has to do with resource provision.

Up to the start of the school year in September this year decisions had not been made and some still have not been made. The Department or NEPS were obviously deciding the cloth had to be cut to measure. Decisions were made on individual young people as to whether they would get special needs assistants at all or whether they would share a special needs assistant with other children. It appears to be a resource issue rather than one based on psychological needs. Perhaps the acting director would care to respond to that.

Ms MacCurtain

I will be glad to clarify the position. The involvement of NEPS in reviewing the cases has been to consider, on the one hand, the Department's criteria for the appointment of special needs assistants and, on the other hand, the professional reports that concern the existence of certain needs. We do not disagree with the findings of other professionals but what we had to say is that obviously the child has needs, but that under the Department's current criteria the child is not eligible.

Deputy Boyle

People have found this aspect of the assessment system frustrating. Psychologists working on behalf of care organisations individually meet the young people concerned and make assessments and recommendations. A report is then furnished to the Department through NEPS and a decision is made, irrespective of whether it is based on criteria, that effectively second-guesses the decision of a trained psychologist. It is on the basis of this decision that resources are or are not provided to the young person concerned. The reality is that the psychologists within NEPS are making decisions on care needs and psychological needs that are not based on any face-to-face meeting with the young persons concerned, but strictly based on a written report. The Secretary General needs to state whether this involves an effective use of public resources.

Mr. Dennehy

The measure in question was an interim one to try to ensure that we dealt with the many applications that had been submitted and to ensure that we dealt with them as fairly as we possibly could. On reports that came in, particularly those submitted by psychologists, we needed psychologists employed in the Department to advise the Minister on some of the cases. If I have not fully answered the Deputy's question I will come back to it.

During or immediately following the debate in question the Minister announced an additional 295 SNAs, to be allocated to schools to deal with every outstanding case. We are also engaged in a fairly major review of all of the schools that have SNAs at present and which have applied for others. In some cases, the child to whom the SNA was allocated may have gone on to a post-primary school, for example. Certain cases have come to our attention. We are not trying to deprive schools of SNAs but trying to ensure that the need still exists where SNAs were allocated.

We are now in a position to use the special education council and the 70 special educational needs organisers as part of this exercise. This is an exercise that will be conducted very quickly. I express my dissatisfaction to the Minister regarding the fact that, in respect of many of the cases in question, it took us quite a while to deal with applications from certain schools. The reason was simply that there was an enormous number of applications. It was a resource issue but we can only manage with the staff at our disposal. The people in the special education section——

Deputy Boyle

To be fair, the increased demand came about because of other policy decisions. The young people in question would have been outside the education system otherwise. It was a question of the decision to integrate education.

Mr. Dennehy

I agree with the Deputy. There was a backlog but we have now cleared it. We are now at the stage of reviewing schools that got an allocation and have made an application for others. We are able to do that very quickly. We are now ensuring, particularly through the establishment of the special education council, that we will not have a backlog in future. The backlog is not something of which any of us is proud. We wish that circumstances were different and that we could have handled the cases as they came in and as quickly as possible.

Deputy Boyle

Another issue may be of relevance to the ongoing review and how resources might be used. Today we have spoken largely about the identifiable cohort of young people with medical and psychological needs. They can be identified quickly and easily through various support systems. However, it is also the role of an educational psychological service to deal with other young people, including those with socialisation difficulties and those engaged in inappropriate behaviour. Very often, it is the late identification of young people in these circumstances that causes the problems or makes them harder to solve in the longer term. If the appropriate resources are not provided to deal with these people, we are operating a fire brigade service. Rather than being proactive in helping to identify young people with problems as early as possible, the psychological service is being reactive and perhaps encountering them far too late.

Mr. Dennehy

I agree totally with Deputy Boyle's point. The aim of NEPS is to deal with people in a proactive way as early as possible and before problems manifest themselves in the form of serious or emotionally disturbed behaviour. Ms MacCurtain will elaborate further on this.

Ms MacCurtain

We certainly want to move from a reactive to a proactive model. The target of having a ratio of 35%:65% between support and development work and case work was mentioned. Some of the psychologists will say to me that it should be the other way around in that there should be even more support and development work. We want to have screening programmes at infant level, for example, and programmes to support early literacy initiatives. In this way, we feel we could really have an impact on the system and make a difference for children. There is a constant tension in any professional service between one's feeling that one cannot ignore the acute problems when they arise and the feeling that one must try to adopt a more preventive and proactive focus.

Deputy Boyle

If resources allow, does Ms MacCurtain envisage a positive role for random psychological assessments, which could be carried out on a spot-check basis? No one is ever suggesting the resources will exist for an individual psychological assessment for everybody in the education system.

Ms MacCurtain

I do. We have used that kind of random assessment. For example, we would help a large post-primary school to do a screening programme with group tests to ascertain the needs of a group of children. We would then select one or two children for individual psychological assessment to validate the results of the screening programme. That would be a good use of our time.

Where a learning support teacher has been working with a student with a learning difficulty for a couple of terms and not getting anywhere, a psychological assessment might really add value to what is happening to that student.

Chairman

Deputy Deasy stated this was an unusual debate in that we normally examine the finances of various policies. There is one area I would like the delegates to address, which is very relevant to the work of this committee. The witnesses' opening statement and the ensuing discussion described considerable activity. Very significant resources now support this activity but there seems to be no attempt to measure outcomes. One can have activity with very little outcome. NEPS does not seem to have the structure, the managerial structure in particular, to measure outcomes. The Committee of Public Accounts, as a committee that considers value for money, would be more interested in outcomes than activity.

Let us address some specific issues. The table shows that NEPS coverage around the country averages at 79%, but, as we indicated, there are significant regional variations. What does coverage actually mean? In our advice clinics, we would all have come across cases in which a school and its pupils were covered in theory but in which the waiting period from the time a teacher recommended assessment to the time the assessment took place was anywhere between six and nine months. Even where there is supposedly coverage, the system breaks down in practice because it takes far too long for the service to be delivered.

When NEPS carries out its initial assessment of a young person, is it benchmarked so one can measure subsequent improvements? One of the few things I have learned from politics is that if one does not measure the outcome of policy, it is usually not good. The figure of 6,000 special needs assistants and 3,000 additional resource teachers is impressive, but is anyone measuring their effectiveness? In theory, parents are delighted for their children to have special needs assistants. However, I am not sure we know that all the resources being put in are having the intended effect. The delegation has not indicated that outcomes are being measured.

There are logistics problems also. For example, some 10,500 adults were introduced to the school system without the back-up of any infrastructural or building programme to cater for them. I came across a situation in which 28 children, a classroom teacher, a resource teacher and two special needs assistants shared a prefab. The entire staff complement was not present for the full week but at certain times, because of the space available, four adults were sharing a working space with 28 pupils. I am seriously concerned about ignoring outcomes in the context of all this concentrated activity, which is a valid an area of inquiry for this committee. Will Mr. Dennehy address those issues? I will then allow Deputy Joe Higgins to ask questions and I will revert with supplementary questions afterwards.

Mr. Dennehy

Perhaps Ms MacCurtain will also address some of these issues. I agree with the Chairman on the issue of measuring outcomes. It is something in which we have been engaged along with an enormous amount of activity in recent years and the input of resources into the system. There has been some measuring of outcomes but not enough. As part of the Department's exercise of reviewing NEPS and how we allocated the resource teachers and the SNAs, we will involve the newly-appointed special education council, the individuals on the ground and the research staff of the council to advise us on outcomes and the issues referred to by the Chairman.

There is no point in pouring more and more resources into an area simply to have a good feeling about it in regard to value for money or that the outcomes are as we wish them to be. This will be the main thrust of our activity in this area. It will be receiving major emphasis.

Chairman

Has the Department not really been measuring outcomes up to now?.

Mr. Dennehy

The Department has been measuring outcomes through our inspectorate and through school visits by our psychologists. Using mainly the Department's own inspectorate, we have produced a number of internal reports in respect of individual schools or clusters of schools.

Chairman

Surely inspectors' visits to schools, particularly at post-primary level, are as rare as the corncrake.

Mr. Dennehy

Not in the case of primary schools. Moreover, visits are becoming far less rare in the case of post-primary schools because of understandings reached between the Department and unions in respect of teaching in front of inspectors and so on. There are more visits and our inspectors visit schools, in addition to the normal business, for the express purpose of checking issues such as the quality of special needs provision to which resources have already been allocated. However, with the special education council, we will now be able to do this in a far more systematic manner across the country by using it as well as continuing to use our own inspectorate and the other resources available to the Department.

The Chairman also referred to the issue of buildings, about which we are extremely conscious. At a previous committee meeting, I made an opening statement in which I referred to the fact that we are engaged in making up for an enormous deficit in this area and will be for many years. We are trying systematically to upgrade the buildings in every school across the country which means providing additional accommodation for the additional resources which we are putting into the schools.

When a school applies for additional resources, we are conscious that there is a far bigger bill for the State than merely the teacher or the special needs assistant in some cases. This is particularly the case in respect of additional teachers as the special needs assistants work in the classrooms. We are conscious of the issue and we are addressing it within the limit and capacity which is available to us each year for the building programme.

In the context of the multi-annual building envelope, we hope to set out a programme for the next three to four years and beyond, setting out and prioritising situations such as those to which the Chairman referred, for example, where additional teaching resources have been put in, and there is a consequent pressing need for additional accommodation.

Chairman

Outcomes cannot be assessed by inspectors visiting schools. Initially, one must benchmark the children identified and then measure their progress. A system must be put in place to do that. I would be very committed to this policy because it was an admirable initiative when it was first undertaken. Parents who are constantly concerned about their children, particularly underachieving children, get a great fillip when a special needs assistant is appointed. However, as time goes by, if the child does not make significant progress, the initial elation can end up in a great deal of disappointment.

This is not just a feel-good programme. Rather, its intention is to deal with a cohort of approximately 20% of children in primary schools who underachieve. The investment which was made when free education was introduced liberated a huge percentage of young people which resulted in positive economic and social consequences for the country. If similar progress could be made with the 20% of schoolchildren classed as underachievers, it would have huge individual benefits to the children as well as massive positive social and economic consequences for the country. However, to achieve these fine ideals, outcomes must be measured. Otherwise, someone will review this scheme in ten years' time and ask why it was not measured and why, despite all the resources being put in, it did not achieve what was intended.

Mr. Dennehy

I have personally been in discussions with the chief executive officer, CEO, of the new special education council. The activity to which the Chairman referred is now a priority and we will use the council to achieve it.

Ms MacCurtain

I will comment on matters relating to the practice of psychology. It is our normal practice to review the progress of children we have assessed and for whom we have devised programmes on a six-monthly basis until we feel it is safe to close their files. We often find that recommendations we made on foot of our assessments were not effective. Therefore, we have to reassess and make new recommendations as a matter of course. We have also introduced evaluation instruments. We expect each psychologist to review in detail two cases per term and there is a standard form for feedback from the child, the parent and any teachers involved, although we do not yet have the capacity to collate all that information. As it influences the psychologists' professional practice, it is of benefit.

We work with a staged model of assessment which includes all of the teachers involved as well as us. The first stage is to discuss with the teacher what he or she is going to do and to make recommendations about programmes. The second stage is to use particular resources in schools, such as the learning support teacher, for more diagnosis and support and only at the third stage would we become involved. Sometimes teachers feel that because we have not seen the child, we are not involved in the collaborative process of assessment but we are.

We prioritise the more acute cases who obviously need to be seen straight away without going through any stages in consultation with the schools. This means, unfortunately, that some of the less acute cases must wait longer for an assessment because that is the way we work. If people are really concerned about the length of time they are waiting, they should bring it to the attention of the regional management of NEPS. We work a team system so if the psychologist for the school is unable to meet all the demands, another team member would accompany him or her and do some of the work.

Chairman

Is assessment and reassessment a function of the professional competence of the individual psychologist or is there a management protocol in place which requires the psychologist to follow guidelines?

Ms MacCurtain

We have guidelines on what constitutes an assessment in our basic training. We also have professional supervision throughout NEPS whereby every psychologist at every level in the organisation must meet a professional supervisor on a regular basis and discuss cases and evaluate what is being done with support from the supervisor. This is separate from the line management function.

Chairman

Is there a management protocol that psychologists are required to follow in dealing with requests for assessment, assessment and reassessment periodically? Is it like in other professions, where there is a reliance on the professional training of the psychologist and it is expected that as best practice in the profession it would happen anyway? Is it management driven or does it come from the professional ethic?

Ms MacCurtain

It is a combination of both. We must have a protocol or model or service laid down and we expect everyone to act in that way.

Deputy J. Higgins

If the full complement of psychologists was in place and there was a 1:5,000 ratio of students, would that be sufficient for the comprehensive service that is needed? If there is to be a follow up on how the children are progressing, it would require time to track them.

Mr. Dennehy

I am not professionally competent to answer that question but, conscious of the numbers that were originally recommended and the numbers we now have in place, it is an issue we will examine in the internal review the Department is conducting of all of our strategies for dealing with children who are experiencing learning difficulties, including the psychological service. We will be looking at the numbers and speaking to Ms MacCurtain and her colleagues about establishing new targets for the number of psychologists that will be recommended to the Minister. We will examine if 129 or even 184 psychologists would be enough or too many. We will examine that issue in conjunction with the special education council, listening to NEPS, and discuss it using the advice of our inspectorate.

I will not try to answer the question with figures, although Ms MacCurtain might be able to give the view of the psychological service.

Deputy J. Higgins

It is self-evident that if there is to be continuing assessment, greater numbers will be needed.

Mr. Dennehy

The Deputy could be right but for one thing. In recent years, with the resources that have been put in place, there is a growing level of expertise in schools. In many cases in the past, the first thought of a teacher was to secure a full psychological assessment. Through training, additional training for learning support teachers and the work NEPS is doing, we are trying to bring about a situation where only the children who require a psychological assessment are actually given one.

There is another dimension to this that was pointed out to me recently. For a child, a full psychological assessment can be a traumatic experience. If it helps the child, we must do it but if the child only needs a different learning plan or teaching strategies, we should not put him or her through the ordeal of a full assessment.

I am not sure we have a definite answer to the numbers question. The Deputy is right, we probably need 184 psychologists, maybe more. Until we have examined the area, however, I will not give a definitive number.

Deputy J. Higgins

The parents of problem children are also very important in this situation. How does the service interface with them? How much time do the psychologists spend with parents? This is critical. The Chairman mentioned a figure of 20% for underachievers and there is a level of under-achievement, but there are more extreme difficulties within that. It is a phenomenon we have seen again and again in recent years, with parents who care showing up in the courts genuinely distressed, with the common refrain they have done everything and gone everywhere but there has been no service. Could Mr. Dennehy address that?

Mr. Dennehy

I will ask Ms MacCurtain to comment on that matter. On the generality described by the Deputy, I do not want — neither does the Government — to see parents with a legitimate grievance having to take the problem to court to get what they feel they deserve or do deserve.

Deputy J. Higgins

I am talking about the scenario where children and teenagers end up in the District Court having caused serious harm to someone and where the parents claim they sought intervention years before but it never happened.

Mr. Dennehy

I will ask Ms MacCurtain to give her professional opinion.

Ms MacCurtain

We maintain very close contact with the parents of all children referred to us. We only see children after we have received written and informed consent from the parents who are always offered an appointment to meet us, either before or after the assessment or very often both. The amount of time spent with them varies. In the case of problem behaviour or where one has to break a painful diagnosis to them, we spend a long time with them. We believe the time spent with parents is valuable, particularly for behaviour management. If we are helping parents with one child, we may well be able to help them with the other children in the family. There is added value in this. On the cases referred to by the Deputy in the District Courts, sadly in their earlier years in school the teenagers in question would not have had access to school based support services.

Deputy J. Higgins

The Comptroller and Auditor General's report states:

NEPS believes that its psychologists can provide the most appropriate support service for students, parents and teachers by [among other elements] ... tracking pupils with special educational needs through the educational system.

This touches on what the Chairman asked. By coincidence, this morning I responded to an urgent plea from parents facing an appeal with their child. Let us take, for example, a situation before the intervention of the national educational psychological service where a child is expelled from a secondary school. The parents are left at sea in finding a place for the child to take up his or her education. Where they have a genuine interest, there should be more proactive involvement to assist them after the child has undergone sufficient counselling and therapy. This comes within the aspiration of the National Educational Psychological Service to track pupils through the education system.

Ms MacCurtain

It does. We receive additional help through two new agencies, the National Council for Special Education and National Educational Welfare Board. Educational welfare officers are active in helping parents to find places in schools. We also have a role in supporting a student after he or she has re-entered school. We work with the other agencies involved in this regard. Tracking students with special needs is more a function of the special educational needs organisers than for the national educational psychological service.

Mr. Dennehy

Several agencies will be dovetailing to ensure every child in the primary school system is tracked. This did not happen in the past. The National Educational Welfare Board is one of these agencies. The new National Council for Special Education, through special educational needs organisers who will be locally based, will provide us with an opportunity to track individual pupils through the system to identify those who might drop out and otherwise disappear.

Deputy J. Higgins

The country has changed demographically in the past ten years with higher immigration manifesting itself in schools, particularly those in suburban areas. Schools are facing an extra challenge with many pupils from different cultures and countries, bringing other needs apart from language difficulties. How aware is the Department of this problem? For example, Huntstown primary school in the constituency of Dublin West has 930 pupils, of whom 220 come from other cultures. There are more than 20 different nationalities. The staff, management and parent body are wonderful but increasingly find themselves under severe pressure. Where it is appropriate, psychological assistance, special educational needs and resource teachers are needed. Has the Department identified this as an urgent issue? Where, of necessity, there will be higher demands on the psychological service, is there a policy of providing extra resources and special educational needs teachers in such schools?

Mr. Dennehy

It was not a major issue when the national educational psychological service was established. A friend of mine is a principal in a school not half a mile away from the one referred to by the Deputy. Of the school's 500 pupils, 150 are from 17 nations. Additional assistance is provided with language teaching. In the normal course of events, special educational needs assistants and resource teachers are provided. The evidence is that most of the children concerned have a higher incidence of learning difficulties than children from the local Irish community. This will be factored in whatever work is being done and in reviewing how we allocate resources to schools.

Deputy J. Higgins

Apart from the positive aspects that will result from the allocation of extra resources, it will also prevent other social problems emerging ten years from how. In the particular school I mentioned, four special educational needs assistant places were revoked rather than maintained. The Department may need to go through it with a fine toothcomb.

Mr. Dennehy

I agree with the Deputy. We are looking at every case to ensure where services are needed by a school, they are not withdrawn.

Chairman

Did the Department of Finance look at the measurement of outcomes before signing off on the large sums allocated for special educational needs assistants?

Ms Nolan

The Department of Finance would be interested in this matter. I agree with the Chairman's comments on the measurement of outcomes, a question on which we have had discussions with the Department of Education and Science. It is a glaring fact that we have allocated large sums in extra resources to this area in the past five years and that we have fallen behind in putting systems in place to measure outcomes which I am sure individual teachers measure. I would not wish to cast aspersions on anyone, we need systems to ensure children receiving special provision benefit from it. We can measure the benefit and change the provision if they are not. We have had initial discussions with the Department of Education and Science as part of this review.

Chairman

Does the policy of restrictions on recruitment in the public service apply to special educational needs assistants and resource teachers?

Ms Nolan

The number of special educational needs assistants and resource teachers has risen significantly in the past two years, notwithstanding that policy. In theory, it does but in practice, because of the way such teachers are assigned, exceptions have been made.

Chairman

Is it levered through social partnership?

Ms Nolan

Yes.

Chairman

It was part of the package of negotiations.

Mr. Purcell

I have a few additional comments to make to reinforce what the Chairman, the Accounting Officer and the acting director have said. It is not all that unusual to find something like this in our annual report because I have progressively been using it to report on mini-value for money studies. In that sense it is not a full-blown version. This started as a value for money examination and I had an outline study conducted which produced a great deal of information. The National Educational Psychological Service was in an early stage of development and it would not have been fair to subject it to a full examination. The audit tried to establish how the agency was fulfilling its mandate and what systems were in place for measuring performance. It is vital to have such systems up and running as fast as possible. As the old maxim goes, what gets measured gets done.

The report tries to look at whether the organisation was structured and managed in a way that would maximise its impact. In this respect, we point to the importance of information and try to place some information on the delivery of the service in the public domain. To repeat a point I made last week during the discussion on the penalty points system, it enables better management of the service. A case in point is the amount of time spent on the important work of providing support and development and to know how much time the service is devoting to it as against what is seen as desirable, if not necessary. The Department reacted positively to the report which is 15 months old. It is starting to produce the kind of information that can influence how the service can be delivered.

The cap on public service numbers is a fact of life. One must deal with the reality, not the way one would like things to be. An effective organisation is one which reacts to a changed environment and circumstances and involves considering alternative forms of delivery. The cap on public service recruitment is not the only factor in the changed environment. I was happy to hear the Accounting Officer say that, although in 1999 the Department thought there should be X number of psychologists. The provision of extra resources about which we have heard has changed the spectrum of educational disadvantage. The extent of the extra resources came as a pleasant surprise to me.

To show we also have our eye on the ball, we are undertaking a value for money examination of the way in which educational disadvantage is tackled, a matter on which I hope we can report in 2005. This discussion has been very useful in that context and will, I hope, feed into the study.

Chairman

Is it agreed that we dispose of chapter 7.4? Agreed.

The withness withdrew.

The committee adjourned at 1.50 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Thursday, 18 November 2004.