COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 17 Apr 2008

Chapter 7.2 — Prefabricated School Accommodation.

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

Chairman

We will examine the 2006 annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and appropriation accounts, Vote 26 — Department of Education and Science, chapter 7.1 — the public private partnership pilot schools project follow-up, and chapter 7.2 — prefabricated school accommodation.

Witnesses should be aware that they do not enjoy absolute privilege and members' and witnesses' attention is drawn 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 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 to appear 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 them and provided with the transcript of the relevant part of the committee's proceedings if the committee considers it appropriate in the interests of justice.

Notwithstanding this provision in 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 within Standing Order 158 that the committee shall 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 policy or policies.

I welcome the Secretary General of the Department of Education and Science, Ms Brigid McManus. I ask her to introduce her officials.

Ms Brigid McManus

With me is Mr. Martin Hanevy, assistant secretary, Mr. Brian Duggan, principal officer, and Ms Bláithín Dowling, who deal with the finance function in the Department. Also with me is Mr. Frank Wyse, assistant secretary, who, among other things, is in charge of building. Ms Maria Grogan heads up our public private partnership unit and Mr. Gavan O'Leary is from the building unit.

Chairman

I also welcome the officials from the Department of Finance and invite them to introduce themselves.

Mr. Brendan Ellison

We are all from sectoral policy division. I am responsible for the Vote of the Department. Mr. David Denny is responsible for the administrative budgets and staffing matters and Ms Stephanie O'Donnell deals with public private partnerships.

Chairman

I ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce Vote 26, chapters 7.1 and 7.2. The full text of the chapters can be found in the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General or on the website of the Comptroller and Auditor General at www.audgen.gov.ie.

Mr. John Purcell

I will talk about the Vote very briefly. It is a wide ranging Vote, covering the whole spectrum of Exchequer financing of education. Apart from the funding of primary, secondary and third level education, mostly comprising salary costs, the Vote includes expenditure under the residential institutions redress scheme, which has interested the committee in the past. Members will see from the reference to contingent liability that the Department has tentatively estimated the final cost of the scheme to be in the region of €1.2 billion.

On chapter 7.1, the committee will recall that I carried out an examination of the public private partnership pilot schools project in 2004 and the results of that examination were presented in my Value for Money Report 48 in that year. The project provided for the construction of five second-level schools and their operation and maintenance over the 25-year span of the agreement. Bearing in mind that the arrangements under the contract had been in place for more than four years, I decided we should consider how they were working out in practice. As part of the examination we issued a questionnaire to the principals of the five schools. Once these had been returned we visited each of the schools to discuss the issues arising from the questionnaires.

We found that there was general satisfaction with the effect of the new arrangements in terms of the management of the facilities and the operation of the schools. However, there were also some areas that needed attention. These included a lack of clarity regarding what was to be provided to the schools under the arrangements, inadequate reporting of less than satisfactory service, the low level of usage of the schools by third parties and the failure to implement energy management policies.

The contract provided that the PPP company would identify and agree with the Department any deductions required as a result of any shortcomings in the services being provided. Although according to the Department there were no major unavailability issues for the schools, there were quality failures which when taken in aggregate could have resulted in deductions. These had not really surfaced because the schools were not being asked for confirmation of the performance claimed by the PPP company in its monthly reports to the Department. This problem has now been addressed by the introduction of a new protocol with each school principal whereby the schools are being asked to comment on the company's performance report each month. Moreover a technical check to gather feedback on the operation of the school buildings has been instituted on a quarterly basis. A liaison committee comprising the five principals, and representatives of the company and the Department has also been reconstituted to oversee the ongoing quality of facilities management and operation of the schools. I understand that since the tighter monitoring arrangements were introduced late last summer some deductions for quality failures were identified for the last quarter of 2007. Members will see from the report that the Department has responded positively to other findings of the examination and it had already identified some of the deficiencies. I will leave it to the Accounting Officer to give the committee the most up to date details of what has been done in this regard.

Regarding chapter 7.2, it was suggested to me by the previous committee that the Department did not get value for money in its policy of renting prefabs to meet growing accommodation needs particularly at primary level. Instances of long periods of rental were cited at the time. I reviewed the matter and the results of my inquiries are recorded in chapter 7.2. Members will see from table 31 that there has been a big swing in recent years from buying to renting temporary accommodation, the vast majority being in the form of prefabs. While we would all agree that renting makes good economic sense in the short term it is rarely the appropriate response when longer time frame comes into play in the provision of school accommodation. The move to renting came about in 2003 based on the Department's experience in purchasing and relocating prefabs. However, it really did not seem to take into account situations where, for one reason or another, the building of permanent accommodation to meet the established need is delayed. In such circumstances rental of prefabs could continue for long periods.

It was difficult to establish the extent of the problem because the Department did not maintain a central record of rentals. However, it was clear from an examination of individual school files that extended rental periods were certainly not unusual. In light of the findings of my examination the Department undertook to review the rental policy with a view to establishing the break-even point between rental and purchase of prefabs and some other factors, and to consider how best a centralised inventory of prefabs can be developed and maintained by the Department to give it better management control over this area of activity.

Ms Brigid McManus

I am pleased to be here to discuss with the committee the 2006 appropriation accounts for the Department of Education and Science. In my opening statement I will focus on outlining the position in relation to the specific issues raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General in chapters 7.1 and 7.2.

Chapter 7.1 deals with the arrangements under the PPP pilot schools contract. As Deputies will recall, one of the first PPP projects to be undertaken following the Government decision in 1998 was a pilot project involving the building of five new second level schools. One of the aims of the pilot process was to identify issues and problems encountered during the procurement phase, and subsequently during the ongoing implementation of the projects, and to use the information and learning to develop PPP policy and enhance the process. The current contract for the pilot schools was taken over by the current PPP company, Hochtief, in July 2006, from the original PPP company Jarvis, which built the schools.

While the overall experience of the Department on the provision of services in the pilot schools has been a positive one, some issues which have arisen during the initial period of operation of the schools resulted in less than satisfactory service for the schools on a number of fronts, although none of the schools has experienced difficulties which have resulted in any serious unavailability issues.

In chapter 7.1, the Comptroller and Auditor General raises issues about the verification procedures in relation to providing full assurance about the complete delivery of contract services and about communication with the schools. A number of improvements have been made. The original contract required that the PPP company would identify and agree with the Department any deductions required as a result of any shortcomings in the services being provided. While there were no major unavailability issues which would have required deductions, there were a number of quality failures which, while taken in aggregate, could have resulted in deductions. The original PPP company, Jarvis, had not recorded any of these quality failures. Following the takeover of the contract by the current company, it was agreed that the mechanism contained within the contract would be actively followed whereby any unavailability issues or quality failures would be identified in the monthly reports and, following discussions with the PPP company, the appropriate deductions are automatically reflected in the relevant invoices.

The help desk system, through which the schools report faults, has now been automated by the PPP company and the Department is working with the company to ensure that any service failures reported during the relevant month are now shown in the monthly report. A formal system of monitoring has been agreed with the school principals whereby a copy of the complete report is forwarded to the school authority by the Department. The Department has agreed a protocol with each school principal whereby the school is asked to comment on the report each month. These comments are used to inform the payments made.

Deductions from the amounts due to the PPP company have been applied in each month from October 2007 to February 2008 in respect of service failures. Deductions, so far, amount to €35,364.57. The main reason for these deductions is that the operator has not provided the annual planned preventive maintenance schedules. This is, effectively, the list against which we check that the company is doing the planned maintenance. There were some smaller deductions in relation to various issues in individual schools, such as a failure to clean paving stones and a fault in a lift.

Meetings of a formal liaison committee comprising the five principals and representatives of the Department and the PPP company have resumed and a range of issues are being addressed in this context. These processes will be reviewed after a period. While there are some issues to be addressed, the facilities are regarded as providing an excellent environment for education.

The experience of the pilot projects, in both design and service aspects, has been taken into account in the next phase of the PPP school projects. The first bundle of four post-primary schools designed to provide new accommodation for 2,700 pupils has been approved by the National Development Finance Agency to proceed to planning application. I understand the planning application was submitted yesterday. Subject to the planning process, construction will commence later this year and it is anticipated that the schools will be available by the end of next year. The second bundle of schools, providing accommodation for more than 4,700 pupils, is nearing the end of the pre-procurement phase and will be handed over the NDFA for procurement later this month.

On the second chapter in the report, there has been a significant expansion in the school building programme over the last decade or so. Exchequer capital expenditure on primary and post-primary schools, excluding schools procured through the PPP process, is €586 million in 2008 compared with €133 million in 1998. From 2000 to 2007, as many as 356 large-scale primary and post-primary projects were completed, with a further 67 large-scale projects currently on site this year. Notwithstanding the significant building programme, pressures arising from demographics, special needs education and increased teacher numbers have required the increased use of temporary accommodation, particularly prefabricated accommodation.

Chapter 7.2 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report raised the issue of whether it would be more economic to purchase prefabricated accommodation in situations where the Department currently rented such accommodation. At that point, the Department had not established guidelines on the relative economic advantages as between the rental and purchase of prefabricated buildings. Following a cost assessment undertaken by the Department's quantity surveyors last autumn, it is now the policy of the Department to purchase prefabricated buildings rather than rent where it is expected that they will be required for a period of more than three years.

A comprehensive review of rental policy using external experts is planned. Tenders for this work are currently under examination and a contract will be placed shortly. This review will involve: consideration of the most economic approaches to procuring temporary accommodation; drafting of procedures for a draw-down contract for supply and installation of temporary accommodation on a regional basis — this is to determine if we can benefit from critical mass in the market through operating on a more global basis; an assessment of all existing rental contracts and recommendations on how to reduce overall rental costs for the Department; a review of the contract terms to incorporate buy-out, buy-back and relocation options if local circumstances require it; advice on the further development and maintenance by the Department of a centralised inventory of temporary accommodation; and the development of new standardised sample layouts and specifications for temporary accommodation.

With regard to the comments of the Comptroller and Auditor General that information on the rental of prefabricated accommodation is held in the Department on paper files only and on the lack of central records and aggregated data on rentals in a computerised format, steps have already been taken to create a computerised database of information in the Department. The Department requested information from approximately 900 schools which had rented accommodation, mainly prefabricated, but including some other rented accommodation. Most of the information has been compiled, and completed returns from all except 72 schools have been submitted to the Department. The Department is following up on the outstanding returns. We hope to have the full amount shortly. When complete, this database will provide an up-to-date picture of the situation regarding rented accommodation, including prefabricated accommodation. This will assist with the review referred to and allow for better overall monitoring and review of rented accommodation on an ongoing basis.

I will endeavour to answer any questions committee members may have on these aspects of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report or on the 2006 appropriation accounts for my Department generally.

Chairman

Is it agreed to publish the report? Agreed.

Deputy Seán Fleming

On the review of the public private partnerships, PPPs, the real question to ask concerns the lessons that have been learned from the pilot scheme that will improve the forthcoming PPP arrangements. Reference was made in particular to the second bundle of four post-primary schools that received planning permission yesterday. The smile is on my face because we all know two of the schools are in Portlaoise and that the other two are in Offaly. I am pleased to hear this because we do not normally receive such good local news at a meeting such as this.

On page 179 of the Vote, commitments are made in respect of a legally enforceable contract to the value of €572 million. Why is VAT excluded from this? VAT is a real cost.

How many prefabricated buildings are there? How old is the oldest one occupied? I am surprised at how long it took for the Department to obtain information from its own schools. Ms McManus states 72 schools have not yet submitted information. I would have thought two staff could extract that information on the telephone by Monday or Tuesday and that inspectors could have it by next Wednesday if visiting the site. I do not understand how an issue flagged last summer, as part of the annual audit, is being discussed the following April and why 72 schools have not submitted returns. I would like a commitment to the effect that the Department will have the answer within 14 days. I expected it to be available today.

On the prefabricated buildings, is there a figure available for site rentals? There are many temporary school sites and new schools with temporary sites. When witnesses refer to the rental of temporary accommodation, is site rental included? Perhaps Ms McManus can outline the differences in the costs of site rental and prefabricated buildings. If specific information cannot be provided today, it can be submitted in writing to the committee. I will ask questions on the Vote later.

Ms Brigid McManus

Lessons were learned in regard to the PPPs and we discussed them at an earlier meeting of this committee, when we looked at the Value for Money report. A number were learned in regard to building design. For example, new PPPs follow exactly the same specification as schools in conventional build. As a result of the PPP experience we learned much about corridor space, circulation space and the materials to be used. On the design side, arising from the first bundle we have built in a collection of lessons in terms of specifying the type of schools.

A number of issues relating to services are not covered in the comptroller's report, such as in the area of ICT. We understand the UK experienced similar issues and, excluding cabling and infrastructure, we now leave ICT out of the contract so that schools can deal with it in the normal way.

The Comptroller and Auditor General raised issues such as confusion about equipment, which came up in the Value for Money report as well as this report. Under the new contract the PPP company has to sign off with the individual school principal on a list of equipment provided, at the time of commissioning the school. Questions were also asked as to what equipment was to be maintained by the company and what was not. We have changed the current specifications so that equipment physically linked to the building will now be maintained by the company. There were questions as to whether it was the responsibility of the PPP company or the school.

Help desks were not included in the original PPP contract but they are now mandatory, as is the case in the pilot. We learned that ensuring services were delivered would require a fair input, particularly at the beginning of the contract, to ensure things were bedded down. There was a degree of confusion on the part of principals as to who did what and how things were dealt with in a PPP. In the current bundles we have held many more meetings with principals and they are far more involved at the output specification side. They are also more aware of what a PPP means.

On the educational side, our inspectors carried out a review of how we could free up school principals' time for other educational issues and there were several outcomes to that. Some of the schools managed to free up a great deal of management time for education while others managed less. Accordingly, there are recommendations on how we might interact with principals. For example, if a principal needed to free up posts for maintenance purposes he or she would now be able do so for special needs management or planning in the school. Those recommendations are not in the PPP contract but are ones we would like to follow up with principals.

Deputy Fleming asked about the VAT-exclusive treatment. The VAT is excluded because, in the first pilot schools, it was decided that VAT was a circular transfer. If one built VAT into the cost of the project and then built it into the service payments by the developer the money going to the Exchequer in the first place would then be paid by the Exchequer in VAT on services. At that point a decision was taken that, for all PPP contracts, the VAT element would be dealt with by a lump sum payment. Our colleagues in the Department of Finance may be able to give more information but it was a central decision on PPP contracts.

Our experience, on the service side, with the Cork School of Music and the National Maritime College of Ireland — the two other PPPs in our area — has been fairly good. While they had some initial teething problems in the settling down and commissioning of the building, they certainly have not encountered the kinds of issues that have arisen here. Obviously some of the lessons here were borne in mind. They are obviously on a different scale which may affect it.

On the prefabricated issue and the collection of data, we would have done a survey of schools in late September. The issue, I think, from the Comptroller and Auditor General came up in the summer. I should say, in fairness to the schools, we actually decided, given that we were putting stuff together, that we wanted to get a pretty good handle on everything they had. So the survey was not just "Have you two or three prefabs?" It asked about area, about usage, whether the prefabs were metal or wooden, things we actually had not captured in the past on our own files. This was as well as all the rental types of issues.

The committee might be interested in having a copy of the survey form we sent out. We can certainly let members have it. However, in fairness to the schools, it required a degree of work. In fairness also to the schools, which is a bit different from when we normally send them out surveys, a very high percentage of them came back within the first month or two. Considering the kind of trouble we had following up on things like our audit of enrolments or lots of other things we send to schools, it was not bad. Officials from our regional offices are currently visiting the 72 schools concerned to try to assemble that information.

On the issue of the oldest prefab, I should say just to be clear that what we are capturing in that database is rental accommodation. We are not capturing prefabs that we would have purchased or that the school would have purchased and we would have refunded. So it is to manage the rental issue. We can certainly let the Deputy know when we have run an analysis afterwards. We can even do it I think, but I just do not have information today on the schools minus the 72, so that the committee would have that immediately as to what is the oldest prefab we have. The data we have at the moment is on a database so we can let the committee have the information on the oldest rented prefab, excluding the 72 schools. I just do not have it today. However, it includes all rented payments. If we are renting a site or something like a GAA club, which I think are used for some gaelscoileanna, the rented accommodation would be in there. That is probably the smaller end of the money because that arises in a certain amount of schools in some of the developing areas or the gaelscoileanna.

Deputy Seán Fleming

I wish to ask the Secretary General some questions on the Vote.

Chairman

Before we move away from this area, I would like to ask some questions. If I ran a sweetshop, I would do an occasional stock take. How can a Department of this size plan or manage a range of primary schools without knowing how many prefabs are in the system or how many pupils are in the prefabs? The Department does not know the age of the prefabs or their cost. How can it run a planning unit without that information?

It did not start until last September to embark on an evaluation. At the same time it is excluding one important issue. It is not seeking information on prefabs that are owned either by the school or by the Department. How can it run a planning unit without that basic information? Why was it not done before last September? This issue has gone on for many years. How can it plan?

I attended the official opening of a brand new school last year in Rathpeacon in County Cork. Before it was officially opened there were prefabs in the yard. What kind of planning is that? How can the Department plan adequately when it does not have the basic information a sweetshop owner would have in running his or her own business?

Ms Brigid McManus

I wish to clarify one point. Because we were doing the survey of the schools that had rented prefabs, we asked those schools to tell us where they had purchased prefabs as well. For the schools that are renting we are capturing the purchase. If there are schools out there that ten years ago we gave money to in order to purchase prefabricated buildings we have not surveyed them if they were not already captured in the rental.

On the more general question in terms of whether we should have an inventory of school accommodation, it is a wider issue than just prefabricated buildings because the issue is whether we should have an inventory of the accommodation in every school in the country — whether it is a primary or post-primary school. I agree it would be highly desirable that I be in a position to say that I know that 10% of secondary schools do not have a science laboratory or might not have a gymnasium. In preparing an inventory, it should be an inventory of the permanent physical accommodation. We did a pilot inventory of the school accommodation in County Kildare using external consultants in 2001. That pilot inventory cost approximately £1 million at the time. There are also significant resource implications in keeping an inventory up to date. Even if external people are engaged to do the inventory departmental staff will be required to update it every time something changes.

It was decided in 2001, when the capital budget was fairly tight, that to do that kind of inventory for the whole country would eat up a considerable amount of capital money, apart from the cost of maintaining it. We had to give priority to applications from places where schools needed to be built or where capital needed to be spent rather than to the inventory, even assuming that an inventory of the whole country would not cost as much as £1 million per county. A full inventory of all accommodation throughout the country would be highly desirable. There are very significant resource implications in managing such an inventory. We balanced priorities and considered the Department's capital building budget and other capital needs. From the point of view of managing rental, it would have been desirable to construct a database within the Department. That is an issue of managing systems within the Department and is something we should have had before now. The totality of having a full inventory of what is in every school in the country is, perhaps, a different issue.

The Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out issues regarding our ability to manipulate information on the building programme. We operate on a range of different systems. Even the financial management and project management are not as integrated as we would like. In the three years I have been in the job, this has always been on our ICT planning agenda but has always fallen down the list because of other priorities. We are significantly constrained in our ICT capacity. We have done reviews, both of building and other areas, with which we have not been able to proceed. We commissioned Deloitte & Touche, who reported to us earlier this year, to look at our IT structures and how we could improve our ICT capacity within the Department because that constrains some of our management.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Can Ms McManus give an update on the payments in respect of the residential institutions redress scheme? What does she expect the final liability to be? Can she give the details of the properties to be transferred to the State? Has every property been fully transferred?

A big investment was made in providing one seat per student on school transport. What is the once-off cost of that and the annual increase? More importantly, does anyone ensure that teenagers wear seat belts on school buses? It is fantastic to have spent this money but it is only of value if students wear seat belts. We all know how difficult it is to ensure that a bus load of teenagers will wear seat belts. Has any action been taken in this regard?

How many untrained teachers were working in the school system in the year under review? What are the pension entitlements of the many people who spent many years teaching, albeit untrained? Will Ms McManus also outline the legal costs incurred as a result of defending special needs cases in the courts and cases that may not have proceeded to court? How much was spent on meeting the fees rather than on special needs education?

Does each school receive an annual statement on each of the payments made by the Department thereto? We have found that a variety of payments are made to schools for a variety of issues and that the schools are sometimes unsure of what they are for. The Department stated it would issue an annual statement from which a school could verify that it had received all the money to which it is entitled. Payments were falling under different headings. Are the statements issued and how does the system work?

Ms Brigid McManus

I will try to answer the questions. If we need to obtain information, we can provide it at the end of the meeting or write to the committee afterwards.

On the residential institutions redress scheme, in the accounts I signed for 2007there is a contingent liability of €1.1 billion as opposed to €1.2 billion. This is because the overall average award has been falling. This has been the position each time we have been before the committee and we work out the balance of the contingency on the basis of making an assumption in respect of the current award. The Comptroller and Auditor General indicated previously that he believed the figure might decrease a little below that number. If it continues to fall, it could be a bit below that number. There are still 4,000 applications to process. We do the contingent liability calculation by taking 4,000 at the current rate. That is the position.

I will have to return to the Deputy on the question of the properties. Some 29 properties have been sorted out of the 35 that were on the original schedule. I am not sure if these have been considered by the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests. Some have but there was a somewhat tortuous process regarding the final transfer of title. I will see whether I can obtain the relevant information for the Deputy. There were 35 properties to be transferred — including €5 million in lieu of property — at a value of €38 million. I do not have a figure indicating whether all the properties have been transferred. We will check the figures and revert to the Deputy.

On the question on school transport, I do not believe we have the figures on the cost. The cost has increased significantly, as one will see even from this year's Estimates. Part of the increase is due to the extra transport associated with the ongoing three-for-two arrangement and part is attributable to special needs and demographics. To be honest, I am not sure. We can provide the one-off cost of the capital buses and let the Deputy have the figure afterwards. It would probably be hard to disaggregate how much of the extra running cost is attributable to demographics and how much is attributable to the increase in buses. We can establish whether Bus Éireann can give us a handle on the matter but it will depend on the routes.

On the question of usage, while I know there was concern about primary students not wearing seat belts because they were too young and about their need for supervision, the problem has in fact been on the post-primary buses. There is still a problem in that the surveys carried out by Bus Éireann and the private operators show there are problems with compliance. We have tried advertisements and sending videos and DVDs to schools to remind people to wear them but it remains a problem. We have also had difficulties with vandalism to the seats and seatbelts in some buses. Given the age group concerned, it is a difficult problem.

Deputy Seán Fleming

That is why I asked the question.

Ms Brigid McManus

One can take a horse to water but one cannot make it drink.

There are two sets of costs. Our legal costs fall to the Vote of the Office of the Attorney General and we do not have figures for those. In any event, I understand the figures are not disaggregated. Mr. O'Hagan came before this committee and was asked if it was possible to disaggregate the costs as between special needs cases and others. The legal costs we pay in respect of the other side, in cases in which we settle, fall to our Vote. In 2006 they amounted to €620,880. The figure has been falling and was €1.2 million in 2005 and €5 million in 2004. In 2007 it has fallen to €420,000. As the special needs provision has kicked in we do not have as many cases, though we still have difficult cases involving legal costs.

Deputy Fleming asked about the number of unqualified teachers in 2006 and I will have to check that. At the moment there are 620 in the system. They are in primary level, on a regular teaching contract of employment, and the number excludes short-term, substitute teachers whom we have approved where a school has been unable to get a teacher for a long period, such as a school year. The teachers in question do not necessarily have only a leaving certificate education. For a teacher in special needs we recognise certain limited qualifications but a teacher with a Montessori qualification is not recognised for the purposes of the qualified rate. The Minister has indicated that she is disposed to considering legislation providing for exceptions where schools simply cannot get a qualified teacher.

Pensions are still being sorted out and I am not sure what the latest position is in that regard, but I will send the Deputy a written reply. As I said when I was before the committee previously, with our new FMS system every time we send a payment it carries information as to what it was for. We issue a schedule of anticipated grant payments to each school at the beginning of the year and as we issue payments, we give statements on a regular basis to the chairperson and principal of each school. If a school needs it when settling its accounts, we give it a statement for the year. We do not automatically distribute yearly statements to schools. We were looking at doing it in terms of the post primary end to start with, but there is an IT issue in terms of upgrading our FMS to be able to produce it in that format. However, where schools need something for their annual accounts we give it to them. It is something we are conscious of.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

The PPP contracts were for design build and operate rather than just design and build. Has the Department considered the maintenance aspect? Has it given value for money? Is it worth continuing with it? I presume the four, for which planning permission has been applied, are scheduled to be done on a design, build and operate basis. There was approximately €10 million per annum for the five schools under the original pilot programme. Has this been considered as an option for future PPPs?

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes, we have a planned programme of PPPs both in the school area and in the third level. All of those are on the basis of being design, build, finance and operate. Separately within our conventional traditional building programme we do some design and build, but that is a separate issue. On how we know they are value for money, there is what is called a public sector benchmark. There was a question as to how that had been done in the original pilots. Before we go out to tender a calculation is done as to what it would cost us to build and maintain the school. This is done now for all PPP projects by the NDFA.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Is it possible to separate the maintenance from the design and build, allowing the Department to take over the school to be run by the board of management?

Ms Brigid McManus

Subject to what my Department of Finance colleagues might say, then it would not be a PPP. Then it falls out of the Exchequer. The PPP assumes risks are transferred on things like finance and the availability issue. We obviously still build many schools that the school authorities maintain. However, on the issue of whether it is a PPP, it has to have enough risk transferred, so it is a design, build, finance and operate. In the light of some of what we have found we have changed some of the bits we are asking them to operate within.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Is there a benchmark?

Ms Brigid McManus

There is a benchmark, which is calculated. For example, on the build side, from our quantity surveyors we work out what it would cost us to build a conventional school. We work out what would be our average design fees and all that kind of thing. On the operate side, we estimate the marketplace cost of providing some of the services because obviously we would not necessarily provide some of the services at the moment. They are provided at the individual school level, so that has probably been the more difficult end in calculating the public service. This work is largely done by the NDFA but with some input from us. There are two areas that are probably more problematic. One is what it would cost to procure those services in the marketplace. The other is what value we would put on the risk we are transferring. In doing the public service benchmark they are probably the two more variable issues. We would build into that what it would cost to provide care-taking services and maintenance over a 20-year period. It is then discounted back and there is a public service benchmark created. If the tender does not come in within the public service benchmark, then a certain set of rules is triggered. The Government can decide to go with it anyway, even if it is in excess of the public service benchmark. However, we are required to report it into a kind of system. In the case of the first bundle that is at market, that would have come in within the public service benchmark. It was quite competitive — there were quite a number of bidders for that, which probably helps with the cost.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Do the four that are about to be done form one bundle?

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes, that is one bundle. In fact we call it the first bundle because the pilot is regarded as the pilot.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

This is the real thing.

Ms Brigid McManus

It is a bit confusing because it is probably a second bundle. I have had a bit of confusion with people about this. The first bundle is the Portlaoise and Offaly bundle. The second bundle we would hope to hand over to the NDFA to advertise shortly. It is a bigger one of six schools. There are four schools in the first one. The bundling depends a bit on where we have clear site and outline planning permission.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

I move on to the chapter on prefab school accommodation.

Chairman

I apologise for interrupting the Deputy. Regarding the public private partnership at the original examination on 21 April 2005, the Secretary General told the committee that the Department had appointed an individual to carry out an interim evaluation of the pilot schools project. Has that evaluation been done and what are its findings?

Ms Brigid McManus

There were two issues there. We had appointed a former school principal, Seán Slowey to go out and look at what had been some of the experiences of the schools. It was not a formal legal financial evaluation. It was going out and looking at the schools and talking to the school principals. Some of the issues such as out-of-school usage and ICT, for example, would have been issues that came up in his report. Some of them would have been taken on board. We also said that after five years we would commission a full evaluation. We have terms of reference on that. We wanted to a certain extent to have the kinds of issues on the operational side of the five schools bedded down before we sent out the consultants to do the full formal evaluation.

Chairman

Why is the Department using consultants?

Ms Brigid McManus

We would not have the competence to make an evaluation of the whole financial and operational side. Also, I am not sure how much trust there would be if we, having been the ones who sponsored it, did a review and said we had found it a very good project. There is probably independence required of the evaluation.

Chairman

The Department will give terms of reference to the consultants.

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes, we will give terms of reference to the consultants.

Chairman

As they will produce a report based on the Department's terms of reference, why would the Department not do it? We asked the same questions last week of officials from the Department of Finance. Why are Departments spending so much on consultants? This includes the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health and Children. We discuss the use of consultants every week. When will the Department of Finance have a report on the use of consultants across a wide range of Departments? At times, it escapes me as to why consultants are brought in. We have seen examples in the past including in the evaluation office where consultants were hired and produced useless reports that gave totally misleading guidelines to the evaluation office. Why is the expertise in Departments not used to reduce the costs of the evaluation process?

Ms Brigid McManus

We can certainly look to see whether this is one we could do internally. I do not think we have the capacity unless a body like the NDFA had the capacity to look at some of the financial aspects that one might need to look at in a review. In fairness that is an aspect in rolling out the PPP that the Government decided to have centralised in the NDFA. The NDFA employs financial and technical consultants to do that anyway. My understanding of what the Comptroller and Auditor General was looking for at the time was that we would look at the full wide picture and not just the issue of how well the schools were working, which is probably something we could do internally with our own inspectorate or perhaps drawing on some resources within the schools system. However, we do not have the capacity to examine the risk transfer or value for money aspects. You raise the wider issue, Chairman, of excessive use of consultants. By and large, if we can do a task internally we do it. We also try to use people connected with the school system rather than more traditional consultants. With regard to IT, however, I wanted someone from outside to come in and identify the issue with our ICT capacity and say how it could be improved. There are situations in which one needs someone from the outside who has competence to look at one's operation and see what one needs to do about it. It is our experience that to get a good output from a consultancy one needs to put considerable internal resources into managing the consultants. We sometimes outsource tasks we cannot complete internally without acknowledging the internal resources needed to manage the consultants in order to get a proper output.

We can certainly look at whether we could do this evaluation. It has not yet been put out to tender. Given the financial aspects involved, the NDFA could do something for us within the public system. We can look at it.

Chairman

Does the Department communicate with the Department of Finance on each consultancy contract? Does the Department of Finance monitor the use of consultants on a Department by Department basis? Was the Department of Education and Science asked last week that a study would be done? Is there a mechanism to monitor the extent to which consultants are used?

Mr. David Denny

The Department of Finance is concerned about the use of consultants. However, it is a matter within the delegated authority of each Accounting Officer as to whether consultants are used in any particular case. We introduced revised guidelines on the use of consultants in 2006 and these were circulated to all Departments. I believe they were sent to the committee but a further copy can be sent if required. We stress the importance of making a firm business case for the use of consultants. We ask Departments to evaluate whether internal expertise is available to obviate the need to employ outside consultants.

Chairman

Members of this committee and I were shocked when we asked the Health Service Executive for supplementary information on its expenditure on payroll costs. Buried in the data were 40 pages of consultants being used by the HSE. This raised the question of who is monitoring the use of consultants by Departments and agencies. It seems no one is doing so.

Mr. David Denny

As in any other area of expenditure, the Department of Finance sets down guidelines and resources are then allocated in the context of the Estimates and budgetary process. On a case-by-case basis, Departments must then make a judgment call. They must consider whether internal staff have the training required, or if staff are deployed on other work the opportunity cost of redeploying skilled staff must be considered. On a case-by-case basis, the Department of Finance would not know whether the staff in the planning unit of the Department of Education and Science, for example, could be redeployed for several weeks to do a particular study. Sometimes external consultants bring skills, independence or a wider perspective. The Department of Finance is not enthusiastic about the use of consultants if the work can be done internally. Our guidelines set that down very clearly.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Ms McManus has made it clear that rented accommodation does not merely consist of prefab classrooms. Expenditure on rented accommodation amounted to €15.5 million in 2005 and €24.5 million in 2006. Media reports put it at €35 million for 2007. It seems to be going up by approximately €10 million every year. In her opening statement, Ms McManus mentioned that tenders are being sought for a review of the rental policy. It is clear, therefore, that rented accommodation is to be a permanent fixture and part and parcel of the Department's annual budget. The estimated population for 2020 is approximately 5 million, the bulk of whom will be in the east. It is clear that some areas will require extra accommodation. What planning is being done for this increase? Are we to depend on renting accommodation from sports clubs and stacking prefab classrooms in school playgrounds? Prefab classrooms are an instant solution. Last year in Balbriggan, accommodation had to be provided very quickly. That situation could have been predicted by the local authority, given the degree of housing development in the area. I accept that immigration is a factor in such cases but surely a figure for expected enrolment can be estimated before the beginning of the school year.

Ms Brigid McManus

I can confirm that the figure for rental accommodation in 2007 is €35 million.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Will the increase be of the same order in 2008?

Ms Brigid McManus

There will be a significant increase. The rental figure will increase but because we have shifted to purchase the figure for purchase of temporary accommodation will rise more significantly.

Yes, we are planning. However, two issues arise. The first is the precision with which one can plan. This factor was significant in the Balbriggan case. The second is the availability of budget. Even if one knows a school will be needed it must take its place in the queue of projects waiting to be moved through the system, given the availability of capital resources. It can also sometimes be difficult to acquire a site for building.

With regard to Balbriggan, 17,500 new places were provided last year and a problem arose in only one area. With a growing population and a significant movement of people around the city, we can monitor housing development and talk to local schools and decide where extra places are needed. However, we can then find that parents have entered names on the waiting lists of more than one school and an anticipated need does not arise. We can monitor aggregate figures and housing developments. The PPP school development in Ballincollig, for example, was built on the basis of forecast housing development requiring 1,000 school places. The school still has only 600 or 700 pupils. There are examples of areas where an anticipated number of school places was not required.

We have restructured our building unit to have a particular focus on developing areas and we are trying to target those areas. We face a very significant challenge this year in terms of acquiring sites and delivering new buildings, many constructed off-site, to get sufficient provision for next September. There will be similar challenges in the following years in the primary and post-primary areas, with significant financial implications. The Minister has given priority this year to delivering in those areas. That has resulted in a considerable number of complaints about the implications for the modernisation agenda of schools that want to upgrade their capacity.

The Department is putting a number of measures in place. We already have an arrangement with Fingal County Council. We have been in contact with other local authorities with regard to putting in place structures to designate and acquire sites on our behalf. However, the acquisition of sites is often the constraint.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

The acquisition of sites is an important issue. I am aware of a couple of cases where sites have been reserved for schools over the years but the Department has not acquired them and then the cost of the land increases. To somebody on the outside that speaks of inefficiency. The Department should plan for the future and purchase the land rather than finding its budgets are thrown because the cost of land has escalated.

Ms Brigid McManus

There are a number of issues. First, the Department is obliged, and there are constitutional issues around it, to pay the value of the land, and the price of land is increasing. The difficulty is that the Department has never been and is still not in a position to buy sites and store them. There are places that will need sites in three, four or five years' time, but the Department cannot, from this year's budget, buy those sites, even if they were available and even if they were reserved.

Within its budget, in respect of which there has been a considerable increase on previous years, the Department must balance what it spends on ongoing major projects in the primary and post-primary sectors, on upgrading certain schools and on sites. That means giving priority to the most urgent needs. We have been more proactive over the past year. One of the reasons for setting up the developing areas unit was to have local authorities target the areas of most immediate need where schools will be needed next year or the year after. The Department has never been in a position, and certainly will not be in the current climate, to buy sites that will be needed in five, six or seven years' time.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

It is frustrating.

Ms Brigid McManus

It might be a good idea, but unfortunately the Department cannot do that. That is not to say that we cannot improve our interaction with local authorities. Our experience of the developing areas unit this year was extremely good in terms of the help we got from local authorities and from VECs in certain areas in identifying sites. We need to be more focused in our approach to the issue of acquiring sites, but however we improve matters, there will be financial constraints in terms of how many sites we can buy, where sites become available and so on. The Department is buying a GPS which will allow it to map population. If the Deputy wants to know more about this I will refer her to one of my colleagues. As I understand it, the GPS will allow us to co-ordinate information better and to map the location of schools according to population growth projections from the CSO.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Has the Department not taken that kind of approach previously?

Ms Brigid McManus

No. There is a process of area-based planning. The Commission on School Accommodation, which was chaired by Mr. Frank Murray, identified needs and published area plans for different areas. The most recent one relates to the route of the N4, the north Dublin and east Meath area. It identifies very significant primary and post-primary needs. However, the process did not use technical means. It was done by examining the numbers in schools, local authority data and consulting——

Deputy Deirdre Clune

The Secretary General mentioned liaising with local authorities. I would have thought that would be a good starting point. It would have given the Department much information over the years because the local authorities have the development plans and know what is happening in their areas.

Ms Brigid McManus

I would not like the Deputy to think we have not always had a link with local authorities. We always use local authority data and interact with local authorities in terms of the developing area plans. We were consulted and there was reservation of sites. We have been trying to develop more formal links whereby local authorities would act on our behalf in purchasing sites, going that step further. Local authorities have the levers that allow them to do this. We have, therefore, been talking to the County and City Managers Association with regard to having a formal arrangement. Up to now the OPW has acted for the Department in identifying sites. However, in many instances, particularly in the developing areas, the local authority would be in a better position to act as the Department's agent and negotiate and buy a site and be reimbursed by the Department. It is not the case that we have not had close links with local authorities in regard to planning. However, we have recently been trying to link the acquisition of sites more closely to housing development and to have local authorities act as our agents on the ground.

Chairman

In fairness to Deputy Clune, that approach has not worked. The figures relating to five schools planned under the PPP prove that. In Ballincollig the Department planned for 1,000 pupils. The figures are dropping off and there are only 610 pupils in the school. In Clones it was planned to cater for 500 pupils and there are only 450 in the school. That figure is also dropping. In Dunmanway there are only 566 pupils in the school and that figure is also dropping. Shannon is the only place where there has been an increase. It was planned to cater for 600 pupils and there are 700 pupils. The school in Tubbercurry, County Sligo was planned for 675 pupils but there are only 512 pupils there. How does the Secretary General explain the major miscalculations in very expensive projects?

Ms Brigid McManus

In terms of the precision with which one can plan in an area, the only place where there is a dramatic difference is Ballincollig. We always plan for some expansion when building a second level school. The movement of people at second level is also different. We must also be aware, from a demographic point of view, that the numbers in the second level system are still in decline, but the expansion in numbers that has hit the primary system and caused pressure on primary schools will soon hit the second level system. The figures for 2006-07, which are latest figures we have, show that we currently have 336,000 students in the second level system. Our forecast, based on the numbers currently in primary school, is that by 2013-14 there will be more than 380,000. We will, therefore, see a need for more capacity in the second level area generally.

In regard to Ballincollig, I understand Department of Defence barracks and lands were being sold and it was anticipated that there would a lot of housing developments which would give rise to a need for second level schooling. The expected number of students did not materialise. I suspect part of the reason is that we do not specify what school a student must attend. I recall from a visit to the school at Ballincollig that there was a community college up the road which had well above its numbers, so the attractiveness of different schools within an area can also affect the demographic aspect. We will never see a school plan for 500 students that will end up having exactly 500 in it at any one time. The Ballincollig one would probably be most out of line in terms of design. There is a variability in areas and that is one of the problems, particularly at second level. If one looks at the area based planning the Commission on School Accommodation does and the unpredictability in, say, north Dublin-east Meath, the pattern of post-primary students and the way they criss-cross to attend schools, it makes planning very difficult in terms of knowing the kind of movement we will get, given parental choice. It should be less of an issue in Dunmanway.

Chairman

And Tubbercurry.

Ms Brigid McManus

And Tubbercurry.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

The estimate for the special needs provision for second level, D12, was €18 million, yet the outturn was €9.6 million. The provision generally in that area for first level was €176 million. That is a large contrast. Can Ms McManus give some background on the reason for that?

An issue that arose in my constituency recently was the July special needs provision. Has a decision been taken on whether it will be a requirement that qualified teachers will be needed or special needs assistants that work with the children? Can they be utilised under that scheme?

Ms Brigid McManus

On the July provision, we require that people are qualified. We try to encourage the schools, where possible, to do the July provision. The ideal from our point of view is that the school would provide it. Where the school does not provide it we allow the parents to do it on a home tuition basis. For home tuition we require that the instructor is qualified, although not necessarily in some of the special needs cases. That is always a qualified teacher. There is a list of qualifications which include certain special needs qualifications. Where home tuition is being provided to a student outside a supervised environment by education professionals, it is difficult for us to say that we would accept that education provision should be provided by somebody who does not have a qualification in that context. We require that somebody has qualifications.

As the applied behaviour analysis, ABA, issue has come up, there are certain ABA qualifications and so on that we recognise. We do not recognise them for home tuition for, say, an ordinary student who is out of school but we recognise that there is a wider range of qualifications for special needs. We would not accept that somebody would be completely unqualified while providing home tuition generally or in the July provision.

On the figures, did the Deputy ask about D12?

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Yes.

Ms Brigid McManus

Was it in terms of the——

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Yes, D12.

Ms Brigid McManus

I do not think it was D12; I think it was the miscellaneous special needs subhead. D12 was the special needs assistance and that had an excess. Was that the one the Deputy asked about?

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Yes, and the contrast between that and the provision at first level.

Ms Brigid McManus

They both had an excess. Subhead C8 is where the special needs assistants for primary schools are indicated. That had an Estimates provision of €176 million and the outturn was €192 million, which was an excess of approximately 9%. In second level it was €17 million and €19 million and the excess was 8%. Is the Deputy's issue that there are fewer special needs assistants at second level?

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Yes.

Ms Brigid McManus

There are two factors to that. First, there are students who might need a special needs assistant in primary school but who would not necessarily need one in second level, particularly if they are integrated into a normal second level school. The theory of special needs assistance is that somebody needs it when they are younger, at a certain developmental phase, but it is fair to say that the integration of special needs students, which is a relatively recent phenomenon, has happened more at primary level than second level. We now notice an increase in terms of the demographics. We are getting an increase at primary level because the demographics are going up, so to speak. In other words, if there are more students there will always be more special needs students within that number. In the same way that the demographics are driving up the need for classroom teachers and so on, they are driving up the need for special needs assistants at primary level also.

At post-primary level, where the numbers are static, the increase is more to do with special needs students coming into the second level system. We would expect to see the special needs assistants numbers growing at post-primary level, although I do not know whether the other factors will ever be as high at post-primary level. There are special needs students who can be integrated in primary level and who, perhaps at the end of their primary education, end up going into special schools. For a historical reason and not an accounting one, special schools, even those that take post-primary students, are recognised as primary schools under the primary school category. The special schools funding, therefore, shows up under the primary category regardless of whether it concerns post-primary or special schools.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

I see that. For my information, the area in third level — research and development, E14 and E16, the strategic innovation fund, I am not questioning the amount of money but where does that tie in with the strategy for science, technology and innovation, SSTI? Is it part of that fund or is it additional funding?

Ms Brigid McManus

Two issues arise. The strategic innovation fund is separate, although obviously it would have links. On the research and development subheads, the strategy for science, technology and innovation is an over-arching strategy that encompasses many Departments. There is a big spend by our Department and by Science Foundation Ireland under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. There are also areas such as agricultural research and marine research. That strategy encompasses six or seven departmental boats, so to speak. The research and development money that would be in our Vote, other than the one under our administration subhead, the one under third level — I think it is an €80 million provision and an expenditure of €77 million — would be part of the strategy for science, technology and innovation.

The strategic innovation fund is a fund we set up on a competitive basis to allow for reform in the universities and institutes of technology in the higher education sector. They bid for it. Some of the funds can assist learning at third level while some can help with fourth level. In the last batch of strategic innovation funds an award was made to the institutes of technology collectively to help them build up their capacity in the research area so that they would be able to bid for research and development funds. That money does not fall within the ambit of the strategy for science, technology and innovation, even though some of the reforms we are undertaking are to help people be better at research. There would be a link, therefore, but it does not fall within it.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Is this a relatively new fund?

Ms Brigid McManus

It is. It was agreed in 2006. It has been a bit slow on spend because while we approved it, the universities did not spend as fast. We put in €15 million but the universities did not draw it down in 2006. It is just a timing issue, it will be drawn down.

Deputy Deirdre Clune

Is there an interest in it? Will it be a success?

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes. We have a huge number of applications. I can let the Deputy know later the number of applications, but the bids were well in excess of the amount of money allocated.

On the strategic innovation fund, the institutions have to come up with matching money. What we are trying to do is incentivise them to make reforms but if they are not prepared to put some of their own money into it, how serious are they about the reforms? Some of them have issues as to whether the requirement for matching money limits them somewhat in availing of it, but so far we have not had a shortage of applications. It is an international body where international experts come together, vet the applications and make recommendations to the Minister. We can provide the Deputy with a note about the number of applications and what they were for.

Deputy John Curran

I wish to begin with the school building programme. Providing a school building, whether using the traditional method or a public private partnership, is a substantial investment for the State. One of our concerns is to ensure we maximise the return on that investment. One consideration in providing schools through PPPs was that those schools would also be available for community use outside school hours. The PPP schools have been up and running for five years now. What level of community use is provided in those schools? If I remember correctly, the first part of the income generated was expected to go directly to the school and then there was a sliding scale whereby it would be split between the operator and the school.

Ms Brigid McManus

There is a bank of school hours — 350 hours — that the school could use or sell to the community. Ballincollig, for example, which we discussed earlier, runs an active adult education programme. That programme is conducted out of the bank of hours by the school. The hours after that are sold by the operator and the school gets a value, as it were, out of it. I believe we have provided for 350 hours in the new bundles as well. Our experience has been that, by and large, the schools are not using the full 350 hours. There has not been great usage. One of the gyms is an exception, and there is an all-weather pitch in Ballincollig. Outside those three, there has not been usage outside the 350 hours or any income being generated to the schools. This issue came up in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report.

Deputy John Curran

Do all those schools have traditional sports halls or gymnasia?

Ms Brigid McManus

They do. A number of issues have been raised with us. In the initial roll out of the public private partnerships, people had to book for the non-350 hours through a Dublin help desk. In other words, it was how the company was delivering the facility to people. One of the issues with the PPP process is that, effectively, it shows the full cost of availability of hours. The PPP company will charge the full cost of the insurance and so forth if it does not have its own insurance. Traditionally, our existing schools are supposed to charge that but I suspect it does not happen in many cases. That was an issue and it was discussed in detail at some of the liaison group meetings. Indeed, a round of meetings has been arranged for May specifically on this subject. The operators will look, school by school, at where there is potential to improve those hours. However, it is fair to say that for the adult education traditionally provided by the schools, it is being used quite well. I am not sure to what extent that is the case in the other schools. Maria Grogan was involved in some of those discussions.

Ms Maria Grogan

It is a matter that has been discussed with the liaison committees over a period and it is one of the areas on which we are now focusing. We need the schools to work out how much of the 350 hours realistically they will use within the year and let the operator know that. The operator can then investigate whether a third party income is available. It also depends on the location of the school. In the first bundle which we are procuring at present, one of the schools has a very active adult education programme and the school is used four nights of the week. It can still do that within its 350 hours. We hope the working groups will develop it further.

Deputy John Curran

Most of the schools in my area, which are not public private partnership schools, are widely used for community activities and sports. One can hardly book an hour in the sports hall. It is important that where the State is making the investment, the same level of community usage is achieved through the PPP process. That is the weakness, and we have failed on that aspect. Do the PPP schools receive the same rate of capitation fee as traditional schools?

Ms Brigid McManus

In the case of the pilot schools, it is not quite capitation because they are community schools. Basically they are getting one third less.

Deputy John Curran

Is that to account for the ongoing maintenance and so forth which are looked after by the operator?

Ms Brigid McManus

That is right. They are arguing that it should be less than a one third discount. That has been an issue in the bundles as well. Perhaps I am anticipating the Deputy's next question but if one were to add what it costs us on the maintenance, it is more than one third. They are, combined, getting a higher service. If one takes the two-thirds they get as well as the money we are spending on the services element, it would amount to more than the traditional schools get. The schools still do not believe the one third is a reasonable deduction. However, there is the fact, which is probably a good thing from a buildings point of view, that maintenance work is being carried out on the building that a traditional school does not carry out from within its budget. It means that we are spending more than we should be but there is better maintenance and services. Some of the deductions, for example, are for items such as cleaning the paving stones and the like, work a traditional school would not generally carry out.

Deputy John Curran

The public private partnership process——

Ms Brigid McManus

I apologise; it is 25%, not one third.

Deputy John Curran

I sit on a board of management and for what they are getting, 25% does not appear to be a substantial discount.

Ms Brigid McManus

I hope the Deputy will talk to some of his colleagues who will probably be complaining to the Deputy beside him about the 25% discount.

Deputy John Curran

I would opt for the public private partnership any day. The PPP process has been in existence for some time. The schools in the pilot programme have been running for five years. I have looked at the list of prefabricated accommodation. The State has invested heavily in schools in recent years. It is interesting that it has taken us a long time to go back to the PPP process. We have been evaluating it for five years and only now are we moving on the first and second bundles. Why has that taken so long? Should we have not evaluated and embarked on a PPP sooner?

Ms Brigid McManus

It is not just the evaluation issue. There was an evaluation period, which was followed by a period at central level where the issue of how we would handle public private partnerships centrally was considered. That led to the new system involving the National Development Finance Agency. There is also a significant pre-procurement process. The Minister announced the first bundle in late 2005 or early 2006, and the pre-procurement work and getting it to procurement stage, including outline planning, took approximately 26 months.

Ms Maria Grogan

From the end of 2005 they were pre-qualified within a year. The tenders came back in July last year. There is a process that must be followed.

Deputy John Curran

Is Ms McManus saying that it takes considerably longer to provide a school under the public private partnership process?

Ms Brigid McManus

We reckon it is about a year.

Ms Maria Grogan

At present, it takes roughly four years. We learned lessons from the pilot scheme. In the first bundle we had to prepare much of the documentation again. While four years is the indicative timeframe at present, we now have a set of documents. With the second bundle we were able to slot in some of those documents rather than reworking them. We believe therefore that the planning phase should shorten, but the actual process — there is a set process there — does take a period of time. Pre-qualification will take x number of months and tendering will take x number of months.

Ms Brigid McManus

Even with that efficiency, I suspect it is a longer process.

Deputy John Curran

Than the traditional one.

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes. The first bundle was the first one we did with the NDFA and because we changed a lot of the standard documentation it probably took a bit longer. It is more resource-intensive for my people than the traditional one.

Deputy John Curran

I presume if the evaluation did not work out appropriately, the Department would not embark on a PPP. If the cost benefit was not appropriate, the Department would provide it in the traditional way.

Ms Brigid McManus

That would be captured by the public service benchmark, effectively. If, for example, the first bundle had come in higher, and if we could not have got those schools built within the PSB, they would have gone back into the traditional building list and similarly with any subsequent bundles. There are exceptional circumstances where a Government might accept things above a public service benchmark, but if the tenders were not competitive enough to come in within that, and we thought we could build it more cheaply, I assume we would.

Deputy John Curran

I want to ask one or two questions on the Vote proper. Vote B.20 was for the school completion programme and there was an underspend there. Savings arose due to a number of school completion programme projects not having bank accounts or management committees in place in time for payments. Did that carry forward into the following year or was it lost?

Ms Brigid McManus

No, it was a timing issue. We expected to pay them in a year and they did not get paid until the following year. There might have been a certain loss if they were late getting started. There were start-up issues. Once we get the plans, we give 50% of their annual allocation for the start-up cost, recruitment and running costs. Part of it was timing, in that some of the 38 existing projects had not submitted their revised plans, so they were projects that would have been continuing.

Deputy John Curran

So that would show on the following year's accounts.

Ms Brigid McManus

That would show on the following year. There were 43 new projects that were late in submitting their plans. I am assuming that they started late because until they got the money from us——

Deputy John Curran

They could not have started.

Ms Brigid McManus

——they would not have been in a position to recruit staff. That probably reflected the later start-ups.

Deputy John Curran

How many projects are there in total?

Ms Brigid McManus

One hundred and twenty four.

Deputy John Curran

Some 34 of them were late — they got the money the following year — and 40 odd of them did not get going.

Ms Brigid McManus

The 43 new ones were late.

Deputy John Curran

They just did not get going in that year.

Ms Brigid McManus

They did not get going. I can get the exact figures on how many were late and will let the Deputy know. Some of the 38 had new schools in them, so they had to produce new plans. They were late sending in those plans. They had new clusters.

Deputy John Curran

Out of the whole lot, it seems a considerable number had issues.

Ms Brigid McManus

I am not sure how many of the 38 had issues. It is often the case with new ones that they can be later starting than one thinks. I can check how many of the 38 had issues.

Deputy John Curran

My final question refers to special needs assistants in primary schools. There was a big discrepancy between the Estimate and the actual outturn. Ms McManus mentioned planning and numbers but that is the function of an Estimate and it missed the mark considerably. I was wondering if there was more to it. In other words, is it the rate of assessment? It is more than just the raw numbers coming in because the Department must know that in advance.

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes.

Deputy John Curran

It is not just the population because that is built into the Department's Estimate, but 9% was a substantial margin by which to miss it.

Ms Brigid McManus

We would have concerns, I will be quite frank, even at the moment. Since the Government decision in 1998, there is an automatic response so if somebody meets the requirements and assessments they will get the resource hours and special needs assistants. If one parks second level, where there is still an issue of people coming through and we are coming from a low base, we expected at primary that the numbers would have settled down. Looking at my current figures, it is still a problem for us in 2007 and 2008. We expected that one would get the demographics feeding through plus a certain amount extra because we are setting up new autism units in schools and we have a certain allocation of SNAs. If one assumes the percentage of the population should be stable, and assuming the same percent of new children coming in, as the older ones, have special needs, what seems to be happening is that the numbers are going up faster than that. It is a difficult area. For example, when the special education council gets reports we ask it to look at a school's existing provision. There was some evidence that schools had special needs assistants for students who had left. They could take in a new child and provide special needs assistance by sharing a special needs assistant through those kind of arrangements, so one should look at it on a whole school basis.

I have to say — and I am sure Deputies are even more aware of it than I am from Dáil questions and representations — that any such attempt certainly generates a lot of resistance on the ground. It is a sensitive area if a school says that, for health and safety reasons, it will not take the child. We have had situations with one school — and I will not even say in which part of the country — where the special education council estimated it had several special needs assistants over. We instructed them to tell us which person they were letting go and they have refused to identify the person to us for payroll purposes. We have a redundancy scheme for special needs assistants. It is a difficult issue.

There is an issue with health professionals, for example, recommending special needs assistants and stating that the special needs assistant is needed solely for this child and cannot be shared in a classroom. It may depend on the situation. If there is another child in a class one can share a special needs assistant, but one cannot obviously do so if there is not. We have been talking to the HSE about having protocols where HSE professionals are making recommendations. There seems to be a growth of special needs assistants in the area of special emotional difficulties — in other words, assistants that are not dealing with the classic disability special needs, but where the school feels it needs a special needs assistant to handle behavioural matters.

I have a concern in terms of managing the numbers. This is not meanness on my part but at the end of the day if resources are going in, it is in our interests that they are used most effectively. In a set-up where numbers of special needs assistants are growing dramatically, that constrains things we can do in other teaching resource areas, such as health and speech therapists.

Deputy John Curran

To conclude on this, in the year under review, the outturn was 9% off the Estimate. What are the Department's most recent figures like? Are we still out of kilter? Is the outturn still way ahead of the Estimate?

Ms Brigid McManus

We had an excess in 2007, but it may not show up as an excess like that because it was dealt with by a supplementary Estimate. In 2007, we had a greater number of special needs assistants than forecast. Although it is early in the year, looking at the amount that went in last September for the school year — and they go in progressively — the number is still going up faster. At second level, we expect it to be going up faster——

Deputy John Curran

Sure, I can understand that.

Ms Brigid McManus

——but at primary we have a concern that the numbers are going up faster than we might expect.

Deputy John Curran

In relation to population?

Ms Brigid McManus

In relation to population.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I thank Ms McManus for her presentation. I want to start by asking about the Residential Redress Board. It is worth noting that the then Minister, Deputy Michael Woods, estimated at the time that the cost to the State would be about €300 million. We are now looking at a figure some four times that amount. At the time, some of us estimated it would exceed €1 billion but the Minister strongly disputed that.

I wish to ask about the schedule of properties to be contributed by the religious orders in lieu of a financial contribution to these costs. Ms McManus said there is an original list of 35 properties and that the Department has secured 29 of them. Does Ms McManus have a full list available with the valuation for each property?

Ms Brigid McManus

I do not think I have it with me but we can certainly let the Deputy have it.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Does Ms McManus have an overall figure for the value of the 29 properties plus the €5 million in cash?

Ms Brigid McManus

There was a process of going through the properties. There were 64 properties and the total value of what was accepted of that figure was €66 million. We have got €10.76 million so far in lieu of properties. Where we agreed the properties, there was not proper title. We have got that €10.76 million so far. The total value of the properties and the cash is €76.86 million.

There were two categories within that. There were the properties which were accepted between the date of the Taoiseach's apology and the indemnity agreement and that was €40.32 million. Some €38.6 million of that €40.32 million has been sorted. That €38.6 million includes €5.77 million which we took in cash because of property problems. There is a balance of €1.7 million still to be sorted out in that category of property.

In the other category of property, that is, the ones to be transferred after the date, there was a value of €36.54 million. In fact, we have reached agreement on the transfer of 35 of the properties under that schedule. I have been told they have a value of €38 million. I do not know whether there is a balance there. As far as I can see, we have reached agreement. There is approximately €1 million in one category but the other category appears to have been fully sorted out. I do not have the full details of the list but I can let the Deputy have it.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Will Ms McManus indicate the total value of the contribution made by the religious orders at this point?

Ms Brigid McManus

There was a cash, a counselling and a property issue. There was an agreed contribution of €128 million. If one takes the cash, we got €61.9 million. On the €66 million due in property, of the fully transferred properties, we got €19.56 million.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Is that €19.56 million out of €66 million?

Ms Brigid McManus

That is where the properties have been fully transferred — where the title has been fully transferred. There is a €10.95 million value where the properties have transferred but where the legal paperwork is still going on. There is an outstanding balance of €35.59 million. That is a property issue.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

When does the Department expect to receive that €35 million?

Ms Brigid McManus

Some of it is dependent on the actual transfers. There are 19 problematic cases in terms of property. Some 11 of the properties have still to go to the charity commissioners. They belong to the Rosminians. There is still a title problem with one of those properties. They must go in a block because the same issue arises in terms of the trust. We have discussed with the Rosminians that perhaps we could send the ten to the charity commissioners and leave one. Those 11 are being held up because one of those properties belonging to the Rosminians has a legal title. We are insisting that we get good and marketable title. The Rosminians have offered us cash but we want the property. I presume there is a school issue there.

There are eight properties where we have had issues in terms of difficulties with the particular orders and there are 22 further properties which are with the Office of the Chief State Solicitor going through the legal process of title. They are not problematic.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

There is much concern from the taxpayers' point of view that the contribution being made by the religious orders was so small relative to the cost incurred by the taxpayer. It seems extraordinary that at this stage, there is still such a large outstanding figure to be paid over to the State. It is very difficult to follow what Ms McManus said in that there were so many different figures involved. Will Ms McManus provide us with a detailed written report on all of the properties and the individual valuations of each of the properties which have already been transferred and those which are due to be transferred at an early date?

Ms Brigid McManus

I apologise for the confusion. I will certainly provide a detailed report.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I would like to move on to the question of public private partnerships, PPPs. I am a serious sceptic in regard to the value for money for taxpayers from PPPs. Whether it is the metro, motorway projects or schools, it is virtually impossible for us, as public representatives, to establish the actual cost to the taxpayer of each of the PPPs. This came up before in respect of the projected cost of the metro and I am less than happy with the kind of hands-off approach taken by the Department of Finance.

While in theory there is a system where there is a public sector benchmark, getting one's hands of the actual figures the Department has come up with in regard to that benchmark is a bit like the third secret of Fatima. This area warrants further investigation by this committee.

On the bundle of five second-level schools, we have been told by the Comptroller and Auditor General that the total cost for those five schools will amount to €283 million over the 25-year lifetime of the PPP contract. That works out at a net present day value of €150 million. If one divides €150 million by five, one comes up with an average of €30 million per school. That seems an extraordinary cost for a school building. What element of that is down to the construction costs and what element is down to so-called "maintenance" over the 25-year period?

Ms Brigid McManus

The issue the Comptroller and Auditor General raised in his 2005 value for money report was that he estimated that on the building side the capital cost was 6% to 14% higher than that of a traditionally procured school and that was because we had designed them to a higher specification — that is off the top of my head — and the balance was operational costs.

Chairman

I ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to comment.

Mr. John Purcell

In the original report we conducted in 2004 on this we estimated that €79.5 million was the final construction cost. That was the element of the €150 million and the rest would involve matters such as maintenance, operations, overheads, professional fees etc.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I thank Mr. Purcell for that figure. It is funny that we must ask the Comptroller and Auditor General for that figure. While people speak of the advantages of PPPs and the Department of Finance seems much in favour of PPPs as well, neither Department seems in a position to give us the figures on this. My concern is that the enthusiasm that seems to exist in most Department for PPPs is as a result of the fact that hiving something off to a PPP removes the responsibility from the Department. It becomes somebody's job to be done and it seems the view is to hell with the cost in many ways because it is factored over such a long period that one might ask who will know the total bill at the end of the 25-year period.

I very much share the views the Chairman has expressed in respect of this entire approach to carrying out public projects and, indeed, the use of consultants. One must ask, given the level of employment of consultants across all Departments, why we need Departments or should we be looking at drastically cutting back on the numbers within Departments, given that we are getting consultants to do so much of the work.

I want to return to the detail of the PPPs in respect of the five schools. I ask the Department of Finance what was the public sector benchmark for building five second level schools.

Ms Stephanie O’Donnell

I do not have the benchmark details with me. The benchmark would be known to the Department of Education and Science but it is not disclosed in public because of competitiveness issues at the time of the procurement. It is five years since the schools were built and I am sure the issue of disclosing it to the committee could be looked into.

Chairman

That is not a satisfactory answer in any respect.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It certainly is not.

Chairman

Ms O'Donnell came here today knowing that one of the three issues we were discussing was PPPs and it is unacceptable not to have this basic information available to the committee.

Ms Stephanie O’Donnell

With respect, I came in briefed on the policy issues. Usually, the Department with responsibility for a project answers such questions.

Chairman

Pardon.

Ms Stephanie O’Donnell

The project responsibility for each individual PPP rests primarily with each Department. However, I admit, coming in here——

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I want to move on to that issue. It is extremely problematic that, rather than the Department of Finance or another agency having an oversight of what Departments are doing in respect of PPPs, the responsibility lies with the relevant Department to oversee itself. If a Department commits itself to going about procuring services or buildings through a PPP, there is a big inclination for it to justify what it is doing. Surely the Department of Finance should have a role in overseeing the operation of PPPs. Why does the Department of Finance not have a role in that?

Ms Stephanie O’Donnell

The role of the Department of Finance in PPPs is the same as its role on all capital expenditure. Departments operate under delegated sanction for undertaking capital expenditure and they select within that the projects they undertake. Therefore, the Department of Finance does not mark each individual project and track it.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Chairman, there is a serious issue here about the lack of supervision of significantly costly projects in the public sector because the Department of Finance does not see itself as having a role in supervising PPP projects and it is then left to the commissioning Department, from which it seems difficult to get information.

While Ms O'Donnell is contributing, the Department of Finance has a role in setting the public sector benchmark. It is extraordinary that we are dealing with two reports in respect of education, one of which relates to PPPs, and Ms O'Donnell comes along to the meeting unable to tell us anything about the public sector benchmark.

Ms Stephanie O’Donnell

The Department of Finance does not set the public benchmark in an individual project. The public sector benchmark in an individual project is the estimated risk-adjusted life-cycle costs of doing that project traditionally and it is rooted in the experience of doing those projects in each individual Department. The Department of Finance sets out in guidance how to compile a public sector benchmark, what are the areas that should be covered and how the whole model is built up, but in the case of an individual project I would not be involved in the compilation of the public sector benchmark.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Then I apologise. I misunderstood how the system worked.

Chairman

The Secretary General has indicated she wishes to assist here.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I want to ask the Department about the public sector benchmark.

Ms Brigid McManus

First, I ask Deputy Shortall to excuse me for not knowing the capital figure. We probably did not have some of the figures ready because we outlined to the committee all the capital aspects of this a couple of years ago and the issue the Comptroller and Auditor General had raised was about the current operational stuff.

The public sector benchmark is set by the Department with the NDFA, in terms of its advisers, under the current system and it is signed off on by the Department. In practice, much of the technical work is done by the NDFA rather than by the Department.

On the figure, we can check what are the sensitivities about the pilot projects and whether some of the information can be released. I should say that the pilot schools projects were done before we had that public sector benchmark rule. One of the issues that was learned from the pilot project of schools is that one needed a clear public sector benchmark in advance. Indeed, the guidelines or procedures, to which the Department of Finance refers, were based on our experience with the pilot schools, then some of the adaptations we made for the school of music and then the maritime project, which would have been regarded as a good way of calculating the public sector benchmark.

We can check what sensitivities exist around the information on the pilot schools and let Deputy Shortall have that. Given the tendering we are doing, we certainly do not have a policy with current ones of stating what is the benchmark because it would help people who are bidding.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It is five years ago. What is the difficulty in providing us with the public sector benchmarks?

Ms Brigid McManus

I stated that we can check whether there is sensitivity on the five-year one. What I would say about the pilot ones——

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Is the Secretary General not in a position to tell us now what was that benchmark?

Ms Brigid McManus

I would have to check whether there would be implications for the current pilot in letting that out. I would not like to say that now.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

The amount the Department is spending on school buildings is a matter of public record. Leave aside the public sector benchmark, what is the average cost of a second level school building?

Ms Brigid McManus

There is certainly no problem doing the construction piece. The issue is the site.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Can the Secretary General tell us that?

Ms Brigid McManus

The average cost of a 300 pupil second level school for——

Mr. Frank Wyse

For a school for approximately 500 pupils it would normally be slightly over €15 million. In recent times the tenders coming in are quite a bit better. On average, a 500-pupil secondary school with the normal level of ancillary accommodation, with no additional extras in community facilities, costs in the region of €15 million.

Ms Brigid McManus

In undertaking the benchmark for the two bundles that we have done, the configuration of the schools is done on an individual basis. For example, one finds that for a VEC college the cost is probably somewhat higher because it includes more practical subject rooms. The process takes into account the particular site surveys. The public sector benchmark for the bundles that exist is carried out in respect of individual schools and is based on site surveys.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Is Ms McManus stating that, based on current values, the average cost would be €15 million.

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes, if we were building the schools now.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

What would have been the position five years ago?

Mr. Frank Wyse

I do not have the exact figures in my possession. However, there has been quite a degree of construction inflation in the past five years. My recollection is that five years ago the figure would have been between €8 million and €10 million.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It appears that the average construction cost for each of the five schools five years ago was €16 million. Is that correct? That is what the State agreed to pay at that stage. Ms McManus stated that, in her estimation, if conventional methods had been used the cost would have been approximately €10 million.

Ms Brigid McManus

With regard to the schools covered by the pilot projects — this is one of the criticisms levelled at the scheme — the first point to make is that an affordability cap was not set when contracts went out to tender.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

What does that mean?

Ms Brigid McManus

The process that was set involved an assessment mechanism. When tenders were received, under this mechanism we would decide whether to proceed with them. In other words, the process relating to the current pilot schemes whereby the public service benchmark is calculated before contracts are put out to tender, was not used.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It goes without saying that it is the responsibility of senior public servants to ensure that taxpayers are not ripped off.

Ms Brigid McManus

We cannot provide a public sector benchmark figure for the first five because we did not have one.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

In that event, from where does the figure come? How did the Department know that this was a good deal?

Ms Brigid McManus

We would have considered each individual school and reckoned, on the basis of our building costs, whether the deal on offer was good.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Is Ms McManus in a position to explain the basis on which the Department came to that conclusion? From the figures provided, it would not seem to be a good deal.

Ms Brigid McManus

This matter was the subject of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report in 2004. He examined our figures and reached the conclusion that the schools had been more expensive to build by a range of approximately 14% to 16%.

Chairman

Was it not a different percentage? Perhaps Mr. Purcell will comment on the matter in a moment.

Ms Brigid McManus

There was a difference in that we built bigger schools than those demanded under the specification against which that base comparison was made. They were more expensive to build because of the process we used. That is why we have changed the process in respect of tendering. If one allows for the adjustment for space, the figure was something of the order of 6% or 8%.

Mr. John Purcell

We are, as the Accounting Officer stated, going over old ground. There was not a public service benchmark at the time. This was dealt with in the context of being a pilot project aimed at learning and so on. Part of the reason we carried out the examination at the time was to assist the process and also to draw out some lessons. Ultimately, as a result of that experience and that of the Department, the Department of Finance drew up guidelines, including requirements for a public sector benchmark and an affordability cap. The latter is different because it leads on to ask the question "Do we want this at any price?" There is always a price beyond which one is not going to procure something because it is too expensive.

One can consider construction costs. Under the PPP arrangement, such costs were more expensive than the traditional method. Part of that was due to the fact that these were more spacious schools using higher specification materials than would be the case in the construction of their conventional counterparts. This was because the schools had to be seen as attractive to those who would use them. That must be taken into account.

A comparison was carried out — it was not a public sector benchmark as such — by the Department at the time. The Department estimated that there would be a saving of 6%. The mechanism used was fairly rudimentary. I am not saying it was superficial. In light of what was then current knowledge, the Department came up with the best mechanism it could and stated at the outset that it would save 6%.

Following our analysis of the process, including the cost of operating and maintaining the system and construction and other costs, we discovered that the final cost of the deal was in the range of 8% to 13% more expensive. That was our conclusion. I would stand over those figures today. However, we stated that the full value-for-money aspect of the project could not really be established until much later in the process because one would be obliged to ask whether the fabric of the school was better after so many years as a result of the type of preventive maintenance that would be required of the PPP company. It is likely that the school would have been better at the end of the process on foot of the higher spec materials used and the better preventive maintenance required. This was at time when the maintenance grants to ordinary schools — I refer here to conventionally procured schools — were not perhaps meeting the full maintenance costs on an annual basis.

There were many imponderables, etc., for everyone involved, including the Departments of Education and Science and Finance, my office and the National Development Finance Agency — the role of which was set down and seemed reasonable at the outset but has been developed further such that it is expected to become a centre of excellence in respect of these matters. It is a matter of policy that the Government has decided that a certain percentage of the NDP is to be delivered by way of PPP projects. That is a matter of policy. Individual projects are subject to a considerable amount of scrutiny before they are undertaken. This is partly the reason it has taken so long to undertake the development of the next bundle of schools.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I thank Mr. Purcell for his comments. I have no desire to go over old ground. However, Ms McManus was asked about the lessons learned from the pilot. I do not recall her saying that the Department paid over the odds for the buildings. I would have been more reassured if she had done so.

I must also express concern regarding the figure provided in respect of maintenance costs. By my calculation, the figure is €14 million per school in respect of cleaning, refuse charges, maintenance, etc. I do not know of any school on which €14 million is spent in respect of such costs. The grant provided by the Department does not even allow schools to pay the minimum wage to caretakers or secretaries. In such circumstances, the figure to which I refer seems extraordinary. The committee must return to this issue at a later date.

Chairman

From where did the Deputy obtain the figure of €14 million?

Deputy Róisín Shortall

The Comptroller and Auditor General stated that, under current values, the total cost would be €150 million. A figure of €79.5 million is listed in respect of construction costs. When one subtracts the latter from the former, there is €70 million for maintenance costs. When divided by five, that leaves some €14 million per school in respect of maintenance costs.

Deputy Seán Fleming

That figure applies over a 25-year period.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

That is correct.

Ms Brigid McManus

There are other issues which arise, such as insurance. The figure does not merely relate to maintenance and caretaking services. In the pilot scheme, costs relating to ICT operational contracts arose. We subsequently decided to drop these. There are more aspects involved than maintenance——

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Consultants' fees would not arise if it was not being done in that way.

Ms Brigid McManus

I apologise if I was not clear enough regarding the lessons learned. One of the reasons the figure was higher than would be the case with regard to conventional schools was because of the space norms. For example, the space norms, the equipment and everything else are exactly the same as if they were conventionally procured, which was one of the reasons for the variation in the first one. That was one of the lessons learned. I recall a lively debate during my first appearance before the committee on whether what we had done was reasonable in terms of going for the higher specification. We did not fully accept there was a cost overrun because it was like with likes but we accepted the point that schools should not be built on a regular basis through PPP in a different way. Part of what has happened is we have improved the specification on conventional schools and the area norm in new schools is lower than in the pilots but it is a little higher for all schools.

I mentioned in response to Deputy Curran, a higher level of service is probably provided to some of the schools through maintenance and so on than would be conventionally provided but, given that the schools must be handed back to us after a period in the same condition as they were at the beginning, there is a benefit at the end of the period. I accept it gives rise to the issue of whether we provide enough to conventional schools.

The Deputy said it would be easier for us to say we will put this into PPPs and somebody else will look after them. As a parent Department, it would be easier for us to manage a conventional procurement programme. I have a full unit dealing with PPPs. Reference was made to the liaison committee meetings even during the operational phases. The public sector benchmark and the detailed calculations come up to me as the Accounting Officer with a presentation from the NDFA about how it did its calculations. It is, therefore, not the case that this is an easy option for the Department.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Is Ms McManus saying the enthusiasm comes from the political sphere?

Ms Brigid McManus

No, it is a different model to use and there are benefits to both. The PPP model is not suitable for a primary school other than in exceptional circumstances where we are looking at a campus development because, for the reasons I outlined, they are better dealt with under our generic repeat design. Provision for consultancy in our main administrative budget is less than €1 million but the main spending on consultancies is in the building area.

We have done a great deal over the past few years through generic repeat designs to eliminate consultants from the design phases of building programmes by developing such designs. Just because it causes us more trouble does not mean it is not worth doing. One of the things we learned from the pilot project was, in our design system, we did not take sufficient account of the materials needed to ensure a building lasted longer. We sometimes went with a slightly cheaper option at the beginning that did not last. The PPP model benefits us both in learning and feedback. It is not an easy option for us for somebody else to do all the work. There are efforts and costs in both processes.

Third level projects are large and building officers are employed by the university or institute and a different set of issues arise for the Department because the work is done by the institution. I cannot speak for other Departments but we do not sit there and allow the entire building programme be done by PPP because it is a much easier option for the Department. There are costs such as staff and management time in both processes and the benefits vary. All one can do is learn and try to improve what one is doing.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

However, we need to obtain the full sum somewhere but it is difficult for us to get our hands on all the costs involved, including staff and consultancy costs. I accept the enthusiasm for going this way is at a political level.

Ms Brigid McManus

We are enthusiastic to grab as much PPP money as we can get.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I refer to the ownership of schools. For example, in my constituency the school authorities decided to pull out in one case for their own reasons, resulting in a shortage of places and so on, and I understand the Department has been in negotiations with them for 18 months. What is the position regarding publicly-funded school buildings in the control of religious or other bodies when they decide to shut up shop? What happens to the school buildings and the land?

Ms Brigid McManus

It depends on the school and the circumstances. In the school referred to by the Deputy, the Department probably paid nothing towards the land but may have made a contribution to the school building.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

How much can be recouped?

Ms Brigid McManus

We have a lien on the property for the residual value of the building but, in many cases, the value of the property lies in the development land value of the property and the money the Department invested is probably well beyond the useful life of the building.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

That would be the case with older schools but has that position not changed in recent years?

Ms Brigid McManus

In recent years, we bought the land for primary schools and constructed the building. The Department, therefore, owns the land and the building and leases it back to the parish, gaelscoil or Educate Together. There may be exceptions where an old school was on the land or land is adjacent to buildings but by and large we own most new primary schools and they are leased to the authorities running them. Most new second level schools are community colleges and, therefore, the VEC owns the land. Greendale reverted to the Department. Community schools have deeds of trust.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Since when is the new regime in place?

Mr. Martin Hanevy

The original deed of trust for community schools had a clause that was exercised, for example, in Greendale.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

What about primary schools and ordinary secondary schools?

Mr. Martin Hanevy

The issue in primary schools and voluntary secondary schools is the lien on the lease where the properties are vested in diocesan and religious trustees and where they are grant aided by the Department. We never owned the land or the basic property but we may have invested in improving the property or building a primary school. The issue is assessing the residual value to which we are entitled to extract at the point of disposal or exit.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I thought the Department stopped vesting properties in religious orders years ago.

Mr. Frank Wyse

I refer to the timing. Since 1999, there was a change whereby it became the policy of the State to buy land for primary schools. Prior to that, the obligation for the purchase of land, except in very exceptional circumstances, rested with the patron of the school. The patron was obliged to procure the site and then we placed the building on it.

Ms Brigid McManus

It was a problem for groups such as Educate Together.

Mr. Frank Wyse

It was a problem for Educate Together and gaelscoileanna which increasingly were paying high prices. The policy, therefore, changed in 1999 and from that point the vast majority of primary schools have been built on property owned by the State. The land remains in the ownership of the Minister for Education and Science. A lease is put in place to the operators but at all times the ownership of the buildings and the property remains with the State.

Ms Brigid McManus

We do not necessarily insist on it.

Mr. Frank Wyse

It is an option.

Ms Brigid McManus

We do not necessarily insist on it. In the Meath diocese, for example, quite a lot of the land is still provided by the patron. There can be situations where the patron provides the land. We would not give them any money towards it where they actually buy or provide it. Usually in a case where we are building an extension, it is fair to say if we are buying land we will insist on them transferring the original land to us.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

A lien on the property, on the building.

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes, on the building.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I wish to ask a question about the PPPs, public-private partnerships. We have had a long discussion on this subject. I was surprised to hear that it was taking so long for PPPs to come to fruition and taking longer than the Department's bureaucratic set-up, which is far too long in any event. The PPPs are taking even longer, according to the delegation. Leaving aside the cost implications of it, would it be the plan that the PPPs will come in much quicker than at present and quicker than the current process in the Department's school building unit?

Ms Brigid McManus

In terms of the comparison, the PPPs are longer than a conventionally procured building project where we would say, "Here is the site, go and build it", in terms of it moving from design to construction.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Sorry, the question is, will it always be longer?

Ms Brigid McManus

We might manage to shorten it a bit but one would looking at four years versus three years. It might be difficult to get the PPP process right down to three years. Some of the delays on the traditional processes to which the Deputy refers are more to do with cash flow and management and getting them through the pipe line. If one were to do a project as fast as possible under conventional and as fast as possible under PPP, our experience is the procurement and legal work involved means it takes longer. The construction period from when the pilot projects went on site was a bit shorter but that has improved in the traditional sector as well. While we may shorten it a bit, the requirement of the way one tenders, because of the output specifications and because of the 25-year nature of it and the operating side of it, will probably always mean that PPP is a little longer.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

The Secretary General referred to four schools gone out to tender and another six on stream. Where are those six schools?

Ms Brigid McManus

They are Bantry Community College, Kildare Town Community School, Abbeyfeale Community College, Limerick, Athboy Community School and Wicklow Town Community College, Gaelscoil Bheanntraí. In the case of Bantry, the primary school will be on the same campus as the community college so there are two schools on the Bantry site.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I have a question about the rented accommodation. The Secretary General stated in her contribution this morning that comments were made by the Comptroller and Auditor General about information on rental of prefab accommodation held in the Department on paper files. If the information was held in the Department on paper files, why was it necessary to go back to all the schools to ask them what they had? I was amazed to hear that the Department does not know what properties it owns nor the make-up of all schools. The Secretary General said it took €1 million to find out what the Department owned in County Kildare. I would have thought that as a matter of course the Department would have to know about this aspect. It is obvious the Department sanctioned everything that is going ahead and it would be quite easy to update that information on a regular basis. I cannot see the reason for such a lack of information.

Ms Brigid McManus

Our files contain records of where we approved a prefab, what it was intended to be used for. For the purpose of compiling a data base, we decided we wanted more details than we would necessarily have contained in all our files. We wanted information on the type of prefab, whether made of wood or metal. There were quite a lot of details that had not been captured in our files at the time because our files were intended to be a record of approval, given that we were going to the trouble of compiling a data base and we wanted to have somebody look at it and see could we be getting better value on rental. This detail was not on the files and we wanted to capture it.

In terms of the inventory of school accommodation, we know how many schools we have and where they are. What we do not know is the configuration of the accommodation in those schools. We know the information about the new recently built schools. We have never captured in an overall inventory the design and layout of established schools where we might have provided an extension. Even if it was only an extension, the information we would have captured would have only been related to the extension project. There would be significant resource implications for the Department in setting up such an inventory. It is possibly worth doing but we have never done it.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I am amazed that the Department does not have that information because I regard it as very basic.

Since 1999 there has been a change in policy and the Department is now buying the land and building the schools and leasing them back. Where does this appear on the Department's balance sheet?

Ms Brigid McManus

They are listed in our accounts, once they are over a certain value — some of the primary schools may be under the value.

I refer the Deputy to the heading of general information, page 174 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. I refer to 31 first-level sites and 46 gaelscoileanna on page 174.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

The Secretary General referred to planning earlier and she has now said the Department was talking to local authorities. This is not my experience of the Department. I will give an example. When Waterford City Council was developing one of the new neighbourhoods in the city which is developing rapidly, it wanted to set aside a site for a school. Contact was made with the Department of Education and Science but the council was told it was none of its business and that the Department decided where schools would be sited and that it was nothing to do with the council. This is the level of co-operation which that local authority received. On another occasion when the city council spoke to the Department about second-level schools and the demographic trends in Waterford, suddenly the Department announced a new school for the Presentation Order in Waterford, which had never been mentioned to the local authority when the Department was talking to them. Nothing seems to have progressed on that project but in my experience, the Department is not engaging with local authorities. If the Department was engaging more, we might not have run into some of the difficulties that have been encountered in different parts of the country.

Chairman

When the Department is planning new schools, what consultation takes place with existing schools in the area? What discussions take place with those schools regarding the impact on their pupil numbers and the impact on their future viability? Can the Secretary General explain situations where the Department plans new schools when other schools within half a mile or even a quarter of a mile are struggling to survive? What is the rationale and policy in those cases? It is related to Deputy Kenneally's question about proper management and planning.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I was going to come to that matter. What the Department does in this kind of situation impacts on another school in the area as the Chairman has just outlined.

Ms Brigid McManus

Maybe I can answer the first point about process. The primary and post-primary processes are different. In the primary area for a new school to be recognised it goes through a process of recommendations by the new schools advisory committee of the Minister. It publishes annually in the newspapers a list of schools proposed to be recognised and invites submissions. Most of the submissions tend to come from existing schools. This year I recall seeing one from the INTO, for example. That is where we are talking about recognising a school. The issue the Chairman raises may be one of a school that is already recognised in temporary accommodation moving into permanent accommodation. That is a different situation.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

This relates to primary schools.

Ms Brigid McManus

That relates to primary schools. The post-primary——

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Therefore, the Department does not consult local authorities on primary schools.

Mr. Martin Hanevy

Under the Education Act there is an issue of patrons, whether it is Educate Together or others, being entitled to come forward to sponsor a school. There is a legal issue there of assessing that and the Minister deciding. The Secretary General has explained the process — a very public process now — by which those are listed and with which anyone can interact. If the Minister approves it there is the issue of how and where the school is accommodated. Recent history will show that the vast majority of new schools recognised are gaelscoileanna and Educate Together schools, many of which are still in temporary accommodation. Given that these schools are already recognised the issue then becomes where that school is ultimately accommodated.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I am not asking about Educate Together or gaelscoileanna. I am talking about normal primary schools.

Mr. Martin Hanevy

They are normal.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

They are not because they are specialists in their own way. Local authorities are advising me that the Department is not engaging on where any primary schools might be located in the future. Is that not what Mr. Hanevy is telling me?

Ms Brigid McManus

No. There are a couple of issues; one is the process of recognition. I am not sure if anybody here knows the particulars of the Waterford situation. I am not saying that our engagement with local authorities has always been as good as it should have been. I am saying that certainly regarding the process of us looking at things, the local authorities normally notify us and consult us when doing their plans. There is supposed to be an ongoing discussion as to how they see the numbers arising. That is certainly what has been happening in the developing areas where they have been very heavily involved with us in identifying where they think there will be difficulties with some of the local authorities. If there has been an issue in Waterford over a lack of consultation and a lack of engagement, that is certainly something I am happy to look into if we have the time. Mr. Wyse may want to say something about Waterford.

Mr. Frank Wyse

On a point of information regarding Waterford, fairly recently I met an official from the Waterford local authority, Ms Byrne, regarding Carrickpherish. Is that the school to which the Deputy refers?

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

It is.

Mr. Frank Wyse

We had a very detailed engagement on that project. We are due to meet again. The local authority will come back to us on it. It is a proposal we would certainly support. However, there is further work to be done on it. Even at my level I engaged with Ms Byrne on that one and I know my colleagues subsequently met representatives of the local authority through Ms Byrne who has been very helpful to us on this and on several other areas.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I am glad to hear that.

Regarding school transport, which is causing problems for many of us and on which there is considerable expenditure, why is it so hard to get information from the Department on school transport issues?

Ms Brigid McManus

What type of issues? Is it issues affecting individual children?

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

It relates to individual routes. If I contact the Department I will not get information. The only way to get any information — even that is very limited — is by tabling a parliamentary question.

Ms Brigid McManus

In responding to parliamentary questions we must consult Bus Éireann about individual cases as it administers the system. So we would not necessarily have information readily available. I am not aware that there was a particular problem with information being given. I am not sure whether Mr. Wyse, who deals with school transport, is aware of it.

Mr. Frank Wyse

Regarding school transport, as the Accounting Officer has said, the operational details of school transport are conducted at local level by Bus Éireann, which has a network of offices to deal with it. If an issue arises and comes to the attention of the Minister through a parliamentary question or otherwise, we must get information most of the time. Sometimes we will have information available to us, but in many cases we will have to revert to Bus Éireann to provide us with reports regarding the specific issue. It may be an issue to do with eligibility, the extension of a bus service or a pick-up point. The operational details like that can only come to us through Bus Éireann. We get them as quickly as we possibly can, but sometimes there are delays.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

It is not sometimes. There are always delays. It is impossible to get a reply. Perhaps the Department might look into the matter.

Mr. Frank Wyse

Yes.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Chapters E4 and E5 relate to grants to universities and grants to the institute of technology sector. There are more institutes of technology than there are universities. One can easily see how much more funding the universities are getting over institutes of technology. My interest is in the application by Waterford Institute of Technology for university status. Does the Department consider economic factors, which might be outside the remit of its budget? For example if there is a university in an area there will be spin offs and great benefits to the local economy. On a range of issues the south east is lagging behind most other areas and is suffering as a result. Waterford is the only city in the country without a university. Does the Department consider such economic factors when considering any of these applications? Why is there such a reluctance to grant the application in this case?

Ms Brigid McManus

Obviously the decision as to whether the section 9 process for Waterford would be triggered is a decision that is at Government level and therefore falls well within the policy area that I am not empowered to speak upon.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I realise I am stepping over the mark slightly.

Ms Brigid McManus

It might be fairer for me to comment on a narrower process issue. I might have my own views on the various issues, but I do not think it would be appropriate or wise for me to give them at this point in the process. Regarding the process it is fair to say that the economic issues were issues made in that application and would be argued in other applications and the Port report, which the Minister has published, commented on the economic application. As part of our process of advising Government, we consult Forfás, other bodies which have a wider remit and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. At Cabinet level there are obviously Ministers who represent other areas.

On the more general question, the Department tends to be quite involved in wider issues. There are economic drivers involved in many of the decisions on research and development and the skills issues we have pursued over the years with the institutes of technology. If one looks at what we are doing in medicine, there are health drivers. As a Department we are involved in more cross-cutting groups and committees. Generally, while the Department has educational concerns, we also have a tradition of being quite conscious in many of the programmes of the wider economic or social implications of policies.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

The Secretary General referred to research and development. One of the problems arising in this area is that the university sector is attracting much more funding than the institutes of technology sector will ever attract.

Ms Brigid McManus

As I mentioned when Deputy Clune asked me about the strategic innovation fund, the Department is funding the institutes of technology to build capacity in that area. Clearly, however, the institutes of technology have a different mission from universities. For example, they have traditionally offered apprenticeships which would not be available in universities and are particularly strong in applied research versus basic research. As a different type of institution, the institutes of technology are funded in a different way for different things.

While there are a number of institutes, some of them are much smaller than universities. One, therefore, needs to look at student numbers to make the comparison the Deputy made.

There is a difference. The institutes of technology are not debarred from research funding. Some of them have very good specialist research, while others are not involved in that area, nor do they wish to be. They are different kinds of institutions with different missions.

On the question of whether they should transit from one type of institution to the other, without prejudice to which category the institutes of technology on the table, namely, Waterford, DIT and Cork, should be in, the Department believes the work done by the institutes in the skills area, applied research and in working with local companies in the kinds of campus companies they have has made a huge contribution.

Whatever about the validity of a discussion on what is the most appropriate kind of institution, I am always a bit concerned when it is said that one kind of mission is more or less worthy than another kind of mission. As I am conscious that Waterford Institute of Technology would argue that it will not lose the good aspects of the institute of technology mission, I will not make any comment on the issue. Sometimes, however, in the general debate there can be a view that the universities are in some ways higher up the hierarchy than the institutes of technology. If one looks at the traditional role played by the institutes and what they have contributed, particularly in the areas of skills and applied research, I am concerned when the debate goes into that space.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I thank the Chairman and Ms McManus for the latitude they afforded me.

Chairman

I kept my mouth shut regarding Cork and will resist the temptation to comment.

On subhead E5 which Deputy Kenneally discussed, the Secretary General mentioned grants in respect of the running costs of the institutes of technology and one vocational education committee college. As a matter of curiosity, to which college was she referring?

Mr. Martin Hanevy

I believe it is in Killybegs.

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes, it is Killybegs catering college.

Mr. Martin Hanevy

That is subject to verification.

Chairman

On grant aid given to universities, the intake of foreign students is set to double by 2018. Bringing in high value students from abroad is effectively a business. Has the Department carried out studies on manpower requirements in specialties such as medicine, science and so forth? Is it satisfied that the increased intake of lucrative foreign students will not prevent students who would normally come through the points system from accessing courses? In other words, is the income from foreign students subsidising the universities?

Ms Brigid McManus

There is a particular issue with medicine to which I will return. The general policy is to encourage the universities on the basis that their full costs will be recouped. I refer to non-EU students because all EU students have the same rights. Non-EU students are obviously encouraged for revenue raising reasons. The Department and some of our institutes are very clear that this must be done on the basis of full cost recovery. In other words, it should not be subsidised by the Department.

On the research side, where we are looking to double our PhD numbers, there is probably a big benefit on the PhD side to getting in good quality foreign students who help in the experience of everybody. At undergraduate level it is probably more a revenue generating exercise.

Medicine is a particular issue because we have traditionally capped the number of medical places, unlike in the other disciplines, and the universities have used the balance. Another issue is that there is a constraint on the number of places one can offer in medicine because of clinical placement on the HSE side. On foot of the Fottrell report, we are rolling out an increase in the number of medical places. This means that some of the universities are having to cut back on their foreign intake because of the limitations. While there are some limitations in the university system in laboratories, they arise more in the hospital placement side. One of the issues about which Malaysia, with which we have an education agreement, and some other countries that have sent us medical graduates, have concerns is that we are expanding the number of Irish students under the new arrangements and cutting down on the number of foreign students.

Chairman

What is the position regarding dentistry where there are major problems in specialties such as orthodontics? Has the Department carried out studies on the country's needs?

Ms Brigid McManus

My Department is represented. The HSE has a number of manpower planning groups. I can check for the Chairman as I am not sure of the position. I know we would have done programmes on nursing, with the new nursing facilities, speech and language therapies and physiotherapy. We have the medical manpower planning group and I think there are five different manpower planning groups on different medical specialties with the HSE and the third level sector. I am not sure what is the position on dentistry but I can check it and come back to the Chairman.

Chairman

Thank you.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

I apologise for missing a good part of the discussion but I had to attend two other committees. The Chairman can intervene if I repeat earlier questions. What is the latest position on water charges, on which the Taoiseach made some consoling comments a few months ago? Was increased departmental expenditure required in this area or were increases built into capitation? How is this issue being addressed?

Ms Brigid McManus

There are no separate payments to schools. They cover all their current costs from the capitation grant, which was increased this year. The position in terms of the arrangements that were reached following the Taoiseach's statement is that the Government agreed that for a transition period the amount to be paid by non-fee paying, recognised schools would be capped at a flat rate per pupil of €3 in 2007, €3.50 in 2008 and €4 in 2009 and that for 2007 charges applied based on metering would be recalculated on the transitional flat rate, with a credit given for any excess payment. Obviously, the position differed in the different local authority areas and some schools on metering would have had higher costs.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

Does that mean schools will have fewer maintenance resources available to them? In my constituency, one principal rambles around with a toolbox fixing doors and windows and basically trying to hold the building together. I understand the school in question is on one of the Department's waiting lists but the Department has still not got around to dealing with it. She spends much of her time as a carpenter and plumber. Will she have fewer resources because of the imposition of water charges?

Ms Brigid McManus

It depends on what the school is paying in the local authority area. Where water charges were not levied traditionally and where they are being levied now, clearly there are implications for schools as much as a rise in insurance costs.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

I know this is getting into policy but it appears there should be a simple means of addressing this through the public authorities rather than putting the school administration under additional pressure.

On the question of each school having to pay an average of €560,000 per annum towards the public private partnership company, or second PPP company, is it not fair to state the PPP programme is a licence to print money?

Chairman

We have been through this at length for about an hour. We are going over old ground again.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

Can I ask the Chairman and the Comptroller and Auditor General whether we have done any kind of cost benefit analysis?

Chairman

We have been through that as well.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General does not refer to any kind of cost benefit analysis regarding building directly as opposed to doing so through a public private partnership.

Chairman

We have done all that as well.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

I did not get a chance to read anything the Comptroller and Auditor General produced.

Chairman

We dealt with that in this forum by way of questions and answers. I am not being unkind in saying that.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

Having read the report and having listened to the remarks of the Comptroller and Auditor General, it seems to me, as a Member of the Dáil, that the public private partnership programme is a licence to print money. It is a wonderful scam.

On planning, I am familiar with a number of the departmental officials from Tullamore who attend meetings of a body called the North Fringe Forum. We are happily building a new city with approximately 25,000 high-density housing units which will accommodate 50,000 or 60,000 people. The officials have been efficient and have been very supportive of the work of the voluntary committee in our area but it seems it is very much a hit-and-miss situation. Owing to the initiative of a senior official of Fingal County Council, there is at last to be a programme for the early insertion of schools into the massively expanded area of north Dublin city and Fingal. How many staff are in the strategic planning unit, in Tullamore, Marlborough Street or elsewhere?

Ms Brigid McManus

We have 138 in total. This obviously includes those involved with public private partnerships. There are 12 in the forward planning section and 28 in the section pertaining to rapidly developing areas.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

It is a fairly small number of people. As I stated, I am familiar with a number of officials from the Department who attend the North Fringe Forum. We only meet once per quarter. We are not on a statutory footing, despite my many requests in Dáil Éireann to the outgoing Taoiseach to turn the area in question into a strategic development zone, SDZ, such as Adamstown in west Dublin. In his wisdom, he decided not to grant such status. To some extent, public officials such as those in the Department and elected representatives must struggle to obtain social capital and social infrastructure. What resources are available to the Department's staff to try to keep pace with the phenomenal development that has been taking place, certainly until very recently?

Ms Brigid McManus

I thank the Deputy for his warm words on good interaction. We had some debate about the other kind of interaction earlier. The Department is very lean by comparison with those in other countries with intermediate education authorities. We have vocational education committees but by and large, much work is done centrally. Our education system has relied greatly on considerable voluntary effort. The focus is often on voluntary effort on the funding side but in terms of management, we have relied traditionally on a system with a degree of voluntary effort from all manner of different bodies. Even on the schools side we relied up to a few years ago on people coming forward saying they wanted to start a school, rather than on the Department trying to plan actively for schools. We have increased the resources. The developing areas unit is new and some of its staff are experienced people from other areas. It represents a new approach to try to address matters proactively.

On the Deputy's question on the resources available, I mentioned earlier that we are buying a GPS-type system to help with planning issues. Many of the resources available to us are in the form of the information possessed by local authorities and others. Much of the work that must be done is groundwork and involves interaction and meetings, such as those referred to by Deputy Broughan.

There is a people resource constraint in terms of time, and obviously the availability of capital is a restraint. In rolling out building programmes and making decisions, a Minister will always have to balance the capital invested in the acquisition of sites that would allow for forward planning, the capital invested in completely new schools programmes such as those in developing areas, and the capital invested in modernisation. We have quite an agenda in respect of modernisation and therefore there must be a balancing of different priorities. Clearly it is a priority to construct good science laboratories, for example, at certain locations.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

Would the key information be from the Central Statistics Office and include census statistics? We once went through a phase in which primary schools were being closed. Some of our best community and local development centres are based in what were primary schools of the Department. We knew the bulge was coming and we experienced a decline, and now another bulge is being experienced. Is it not possible to anticipate this?

Was the Department consulted and does it have an input into the development plans of local authorities or into regional development plans when they are being made? We referred to this some days ago in respect of transport, but education and health are just as important. Has the Department any unit getting ready to make submissions on the next phase of development under the development plans from 2011?

Ms Brigid McManus

I might ask Mr. Frank Wyse, who deals with the building area, to contribute on this matter. There is an obligation on local authorities to consult us with a view to our having an input into development plans. It is probably fair to say one reason we divided things was to increase the degree of long-term focus on some of the planning. We intend to have an input but the extent to which we can do so obviously will depend on the amount of work to be done.

It is fair to say that in addition to our using Central Statistics Office data, we tend to use social welfare data. The Department of Social and Family Affairs tends to have information on rent supplements and personal public service numbers for children, for example. Such information is useful in respect of the primary sector.

In the area-based planning we have been doing with the commission on school accommodation for certain areas, including north Dublin and east Meath, a major study was done on what we were facing. It was used as the basis for some of the work we would have done this year in the developing areas. My planning people would have had input into a document, a draft plan, that we publish. Local authorities and schools comment on the draft plan. In the process involving the commission, we do an initial shot based on CSO data, etc., on foot of which responses are received. In the Fingal process, we had a model geared towards providing community facilities at the same time as the council. The local authorities have met the developing areas unit and outlined what they believed was required in the locations in question for the next year.

A planning constraint arises in respect of sites if one is looking five or seven years hence. We know the areas with problems in the primary sector and we will have issues in the post-primary sector in a few years. Our response will partly be constrained by our ability to forward-buy sites, so to speak, which is dependent on funds available to us and balancing other priorities within the capital budget.

As for the reconstruction done in our building unit, 25 staff overall have been moved there. We hope this will mean we shall be in a better position to undertake that type of interaction over the next few years. Certainly, thanks to a good deal of co-operation from the local authorities we are in a relatively good position in terms of the land acquisitions and drop-in buildings for the coming September. Ideally, we would not like to like to replicate the position of cramming in the type of workload we had to deal with last year. I was meeting some of the local managers in September and I would not like to repeat the hammed period, so to speak, in which we somehow managed to do what had to be done. I would like to get ahead of the curve somewhat.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

I suppose the Department was constrained by the sponsorship model we had in this country. The original vision of someone such as Thomas Davis of a real national school system did not actually exist but it is beginning to. I commend the Secretary General on the fact Greendale community school has been retained for special needs usage and sports education.

I have one final point which may have been asked already. I used to be the communications spokesman for the Labour Party. Where are we with the B18 and the information technology programme? It seems to me that the issue is not just the hardware. Speaking as someone who is a member of the profession, IT has a revolutionary implication for teaching and education. What work is being done? We still hear of schools badly resourced with very old machines which we would not use in this House, for example, a lack of skilled teachers and, above all, education programmes taught through IT or a model of teaching through the technology. Is anything being developed in this regard? We seem to be performing quite badly in this area in respect of the international league tables.

Ms Brigid McManus

There is €252 million in the national development plan for an information and communications technology strategy over the period. A group was brought together, chaired by Mr. Jerome Morrissey, director of the National Centre for Technology in Education, NCTE, to look at how that could best be used in terms of rolling out a strategy. It would have covered the areas the Deputy is talking about. Sometimes we think of capital upgrading — and there is an issue with the age of computers, from our surveys in schools — but more fundamentally there is an issue of hands-on technical expertise in schools.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

This is a good point. Labour Party policy sought a laptop for every child and an actual engineering support network such as that supplied by Siemens for the Oireachtas. How far are we from that? Is every primary and secondary school in the country on-line?

Ms Brigid McManus

I can get the figures for the Deputy, but more than 97% have broadband. There were some technical issues involving a satellite service, but I can get the details.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

Some schools even at this stage are not on-line.

Ms Brigid McManus

As at 10 March this year, 99% have had their local connectivity installed and their routed capability installed and tested. That means practically all of them are——

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

That does not mean they are on-line.

Ms Brigid McManus

They are connected to broadband.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

The current Minister had responsibility for IT before she was Minister for Education and Science. Protocols and the rest had been agreed, but sometimes they were not on-line.

Ms Brigid McManus

We install broadband and if a school does not choose to link up to Scoilnet, we are not forcing it. Obviously at inspection times these issues will be looked at.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

Has the Department set up any type of regional or local structure?

Ms Brigid McManus

There is a help desk in the National Centre for Technology in Education. Perhaps I should make two points. First, the Minister said she will be publishing the strategy shortly and announcing the implementation plan. The other issue concerns very small units; half our primary schools comprise four teachers or fewer. The type of support systems needed and what will work in dispersed schools without costing a fortune are among the issues that need to be explored.

On a more fundamental issue, the first point raised by the Deputy about how ICT will be used to embed the learning is something for which the NCTE has devised numerous programmes. RTE gave the archives free and the GIS the mapping. There has been a good deal of programming. I believe the history programme is the most successful of the Scoilnet resources used. The NCTE is also looking at how it collectively can buy resources that are tailored to the Irish curriculum. One of the challenges for schools is not just having access to a vast swathe of material but to be made aware of appropriate packages that might be used in a particular year of the history curriculum or whatever. Work has been done with the social, personal and health education, SPHE, programme as well, for example. Perhaps I can get information for the Deputy on the embedded education resources. Clearly, there are also related issues regarding initial and ongoing teacher education as well as the available infrastructure. A great deal has happened, perhaps not as quickly as people might like, but the strategy is aimed at addressing this.

Chairman

Before Deputies Shortall and Fleming put their supplementaries, I want to ask the Secretary General questions on subheads C11 and D1. There is a fairly large overspend under subhead C11 for which the Estimate was €297 million but the final spend was €323 million. That has happened for the past three years for this subhead. I link that to D1 where the salary grant has reduced from €909 million to €877 million — and this is the fourth consecutive year there were savings under that subhead. I take from this the message that a good many people are leaving teaching and replacements are not being hired. I see the Secretary General shaking her head.

Ms Brigid McManus

I only wish my teacher numbers were going down.

Chairman

What are the explanations?

Ms Brigid McManus

Perhaps I shall deal with the superannuation one first. There has been a difficulty in this regard. In terms of predicting superannuation, the big cost that is immediately apparent is the lump sum for teachers. One knows the number of teachers on pension. It is a question of how many will retire. Traditionally in teaching, the bulk of retirements involve teachers who have not reached the normal age of retirement. In other words, they retire early. We have an ongoing debate with our colleagues in the Department of Finance at Estimates time. There was an up and down trend at one point whereby teachers might hold on for a particular wage agreement before retiring. It meant the Department would take a big hit in one particular year and perhaps an argument could be made that the numbers would drop the following year.

I am happy to report we have resolved that issue finally because last year we agreed with the Department of Finance to have some actuarial work done, not by a consultant but by an actuary who happened to be working for the Department of Finance and who went through stuff. The 2008 Estimate is significantly higher because the actuary agreed with our estimation that we were on an upward trend of retirements. Part of that may be due to the big expansion on the post-primary side following the introduction of free education in the late 1960s, but the numbers certainly have been fairly steady. The numbers are stable on the second level side.

We had a provision for part-time teachers on fixed-term contracts at second level. The Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001 led to an issue about calculating arrears due to people by putting them on incremental points. They were due quite a lot of money. Negotiations were carried out and we expected the arrears would be issued in 2006, but they did not issue until March 2007. Therefore, they came within the 2007 budget.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

More than €500,000 is being paid to the public private partnership company for maintenance in each school for each year. That seems like a significant sum of money. Is the capitation grant reduced accordingly?

Ms Brigid McManus

The capitation for the pilot programmes in the second level schools is funded by a slightly different mechanism because they are community schools and vocational education committees. However, it is reduced by one quarter. If we added the cost of the services and the money given to the schools, they would be getting more than equivalent schools.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

A lot more.

Ms Brigid McManus

In fairness, things are being done in maintenance at those schools that would not be done in the more traditional schools, such as exterior works.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I note from reading the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General that the provision of vending machines and the proceeds from those machines formed part of the contract. It is disturbing that opportunities are being used to extract money from schoolchildren as part of the contract. I also note that it is to be removed from the contract. What is the policy in respect of the provision of vending machines and advertising on the walls of schools? It is a development I have noticed in recent years and it is certainly a retrograde step. It certainly is a reflection on the Government's inability to fund schools adequately. Does the Department have guidelines or is there a set policy on it?

Ms Brigid McManus

In the public private partnership schools, the products in the vending machines were changed. Some of the schools have suggested that there is no problem in the contract if the vending machines are taken out, and they might decide to do that. The products were changed to allow for healthier food and since then, they have found that no one is buying them. For the new schools, it is up to the school to decide on a vending machine or otherwise. For traditional schools, it is a matter completely for the school management whether they want to have a vending machine.

The issue of commercialisation has been raised extensively at primary school level. A circular has been issued to boards of management on best practice regarding the promotion of commercial products. The Minister has indicated that she would be looking at revising it and issuing new guidelines to schools. We can let the Deputy have a copy of the existing circular, if that is of interest.

Deputy Seán Fleming

With regard to the public private partnership, does the school authority use the portion of the capitation fee to pay for electricity, oil, insurance and so on?

Ms Brigid McManus

Yes. The payment to the public private partnership contractor is made by the Department so the school does not see that transaction. Leaving aside the issue of the utilities used in the after-school portion, which is the private contractor's portion above 350 hours, the normal utility bills are paid by the school out of its normal current funding. The Comptroller and Auditor General looked at the issue about energy efficiency reports, and this has been resolved to the satisfaction of the five schools in the first bundle.

Deputy Seán Fleming

How does the system work as outlined in subhead B10? Subheads B8 and B9 deal with grant aid for youth organisations. There is a figure of €11 million and a figure of €36 million, which totals €47 million. Those figures are broken down on pages 183 to 185. On the top of page 185, there is a heading of special projects for youth schemes with a figure of €16.7 million. What is the breakdown on that?

Youth services are a significant element of the Department but there has been no mention of them so far in the meeting. How does an organisation get on the list to obtain that funding? Does the Department have a set list of clients or is there a fresh round of applications each year? Do the organisations have to submit anything? What protocol is followed? I know that some of these groups are large national organisations, such as Youth Service Ireland and Foróige. Is a set fee sent out and how is the funding monitored? There is a total of €47 million and I know there are many hoops to go through when applying for much smaller national lottery grants. What systems are in place? How many groups receive grants every year and how many come in each year?

Ms Brigid McManus

Subhead B10 deals with Irish colleges, or coláistí samhraidh.

Deputy Seán Fleming

That is all I wanted to know.

Ms Brigid McManus

We fund the education component of those colleges and we inspect them as well.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Is there a grant for attending second level colleges that teach through Irish?

Ms Brigid McManus

No. There is a scholarship scheme, but I am not sure what subhead that is in. There is also a boarding grant scheme for people on islands.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Can the officials send the committee a note on that? I only recently heard about it.

Ms Brigid McManus

We will do that. With regard to youth services, there are many mainstream youth activities that go to national and major regional organisations. That comes out of the youth services grant scheme. It is fair to say that they are regular clients on a yearly basis. There would be negotiations on the budget and the increases they would receive. There are things like Gaisce, there is a youth information centre and a youth club grants scheme. Funding for special projects generally goes to similar organisations from year to year, but one or two new organisations have applied for money under the special projects for youth schemes.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Where are these schemes advertised? Where does one find out about them?

Ms Brigid McManus

I do not know. Usually, what would happen is that some of the youth organisations such as the National Youth Council would run the youth clubs under that scheme, so while new youth clubs could come in, they would come in through that scheme. The issue for the Deputy is whether a new body could come in completely, as opposed to a new youth club——

Deputy Seán Fleming

This is a fairly static list. What threw me was that in the first schedule on page 183, while €11 million comes from Ms McManus's Department, more than €10 million appears to be for the Dublin VECs. Why is €10 million of that €11 million just for Dublin VECs? Youth officers are employed by VECs. Does that come through this funding or through the VEC? I do not see it listed so perhaps it has just happened in the last year. There is no breakdown of the figure of €16.7 million which is listed at the top of page 185.

Chairman

Perhaps the Secretary General can forward us a note on this question.

Ms Brigid McManus

I will get a breakdown on that.

Deputy Seán Fleming

It is just for information purposes. I have no specific query but I would like to know more on how that €48 million works and what procedures are in place. Has the Department audited accounts from all those it gave large grants to last year? Ms McManus knows the basic questions we are asking.

Ms Brigid McManus

On the youth officer question, that comes under the normal VEC heading. It is not so much the people who work, for example, in City of Dublin VEC. The funding for full-time youth officers working in the youth clubs would come out of the youth subhead but funding for the youth development officers would come out of the VEC money. This is because the VEC, under the Youth Work Act, has the obligation to ensure there are proper youth services, and where we employed a number of youth work officers, the VECs would have to supervise this to some extent. I can get the committee a note on the details.

On the evaluation side, we have also employed a youth adviser in the Department who is working out an evaluation system. There is a pilot project evaluating not just the financial audit side, which is different, but whether they are actually delivering what they should be delivering.

Deputy Seán Fleming

They are evaluating the service.

Chairman

I have a final question on solar panels and solar energy. In any of the new primary or second level schools, are we encouraging the designers to incorporate solar panels? Are we using the geothermal energy that is also available?

Ms Brigid McManus

We have done a great deal on energy efficiency. We even won an award from the World Energy Efficiency Association last year. Much of this has to do with the design of capturing natural light and heat, the way systems are designed and where they are located on the site, as well as the conservation side. I believe we had one pilot project with solar panels.

Mr. Frank Wyse

That is correct.

Ms Brigid McManus

I remember it. There is a problem in that solar panels are not great in schools because of the timing of the school year — schools are shut during the summer and during the evenings. If one was capturing heat in a solar panel, one would want to use it in the evenings, so solar panels do not work very well for schools. We have a note on various pilot projects and things we have done.

Mr. Frank Wyse

The other issue with regard to solar panels is that new schools are designed and configured in such a way that they capture the natural sunlight. There was a project — I do not have the information as to its exact location — where we tried out solar panels but it was discovered very quickly that the school was overheating. When the technical people went to the school, all of the windows were open. It was decided that the configuration of a school should be such that it can capture natural sunlight through facing in the correct direction, and should also have a proper, high degree of insulation as well as airtight testing, which is a method of ensuring the building itself is not emitting the energy. These measures mean the new schools being built are approximately two and a half times more energy efficient than even the best standard.

We have been doing quite an amount of work on this, not just with regard to solar energy but also into the potential use of chip boilers and wind turbines in schools. There is a wind turbine project on Tory Island, which is quite successful and is being used by the school for projects and so on. There are a number of different approaches we are currently testing but the main approach would be to ensure that the fabric of the building is such that it is the most energy efficient solution possible. We have included this in the generic designs we are now rolling out for eight, 14 and 16 classroom primary schools. All of these features are included.

Chairman

What about geothermal energy?

Mr. Frank Wyse

We have not done anything on that at this stage but we will be considering it as a potential approach. There are issues in regard to the initial cost associated with some of these measures.

Chairman

It is fairly——

Mr. Frank Wyse

We have tested geothermal installation. While the energy results have been excellent, the compatibility of the system with the schools is somewhat in doubt. The geothermal option is one on which the jury is out to some extent.

Chairman

It is already being used in many public buildings. When I was in the Department of Education, we used some resources to install geothermal systems into sports facilities such as dressing rooms and pavilions. This cut down on the use of oil for hot water for showers and so on by approximately 50%. That is going back 20 years.

Mr. Frank Wyse

The basic approach we are adopting at present concerns finding the right combination for schools, given the circumstances the Secretary General outlined with regard to the period of time they are open and so on. We feel the approach we are adopting at present and the applicability of some of the technologies will enormously improve the situation, certainly in the existing stock of schools.

Chairman

Thank you. Would Mr. Purcell like to say a few words on what he has heard?

Mr. John Purcell

Yon Deputies have a lean and hungry look, so I will not go on for too long.

Chairman

They are dreaming of vending machines.

Mr. John Purcell

The Chairman and Deputy Kenneally referred to the question of an inventory and expressed surprise that this would not be a staple of any system of managing assets. The Department itself realised this going back some years. Perhaps I am showing my age, but 20 years ago, in 1988, an interdepartmental committee recommended an inventory and stated what it should have and so on. Following that, in 1994, the Department undertook a survey of primary school accommodation and got a 90% response rate, the committee will be glad to hear.

The Department had intended setting up a database and did set up a database of sorts, but we then move into the area of ICT capacity problems. At that time, the Department did not have a comprehensive IT strategy and had separate bits of systems here and there, which did not talk to each other. Their value was not what it should have been and I am sure I was critical of this at the time. I know the Accounting Officer mentioned the need to get ICT capacity into the Department and to incorporate this into an overall IT strategy for the Department. This links into some of the points on e-government, which we will not go into again.

We also carried out a value for money report in October 1996 on the planning of second level school accommodation — the Deputy said this might be expected to be done by audit. I have that report with me, if the Deputy wants it. We pointed out the absolute necessity of getting an inventory together at that stage. For one reason or another, some action was taken by the Department and the Commission on School Accommodation was set up. However, there was then the idea that we might have certain regional education boards and that some of these functions would transfer to them, but they did not materialise. I do not know how long this might have set back the process. If one was here 20 years ago, or certainly ten years ago, one would have heard members of the committee making the same comments about the absolute need to have an inventory.

I refer to PPPs, to bring Deputy Shortall back into the equation for a couple of minutes. PPPs are a fact of life and in any case, it is not that a PPP is good and traditional procurement is bad, or vice versa. Certain situations are more suitable to PPP solutions and this is where the development of a public sector benchmark is extremely important. However, although this is important, it is not easy to do correctly because there can be a predisposition towards a particular solution.

When drawing it up, some of the assumptions that must be made regarding risk, the transfer of risk and putting a financial value on them are highly complex and can be, and have been, fudged. There have been studies in other countries, in the United Kingdom in particular, where PPPs were originally entitled private finance initiatives which is basically the same thing. Consequently, one must be careful. The important point is that having looked at a public sector benchmark and having decided to go down a PPP route, this should not inevitably lead to the full monty as one might call it. I refer to design, build, operate, maintain and finance.

As there are different types of PPPs, this is where one needs the specialism that should be applied by the National Development Finance Agency. The attractive part of a PPP project for the private sector is its financing element and this can be seen fairly clearly with a straightforward PPP. However, there are very few straightforward PPP projects. They can involve tax breaks, income streams and all kinds of things.

Members might ask what the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is doing about it. We have done some work in this area and tried to consider the different types of PPPs to ascertain what would be the best value. However, having received the results, I decided it was highly inconclusive. The best way of going about it was to look into a PPP deal in great detail and get down to its entrails. We have started to do that with regard to one PPP — I think it is the Dublin Central Criminal Court complex that is being set up. We will analyse the work carried out by the National Development Finance Agency and the consultants it might be using to gain a greater insight and to provide a better insight in a public report that hopefully, ultimately will see the light of day and will be considered by this committee.

As I said, the PPP versus traditional procurement argument is complex and is not easy and is not simply a case of one being good and the other being bad. It depends.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Purcell and everyone who attended today to answer the questions as clearly as they could. I hope that when the witnesses return before the committee next year, some progress will have been made on carrying out the inventory. I consider it to be a major failure on the Department's part not to have carried out such an inventory in light of all the comments that have been made for the past ten or 15 years. It is incomprehensible to think the Department is planning for the future without knowing what it has. I drew a comparison with sweetshops earlier and I believe this constitutes poor management. While I am looking at the Secretary General, she has only been in her post for three years and this problem has existed for ten, 15 or 20 years. I hope that much progress will be made.

I do not accept for a moment that it would cost €1 million to carry out a stocktake of what the Department does and does not own, as well as on the status of its properties, in a single county. I find it incomprehensible that the Department is unable to issue a detailed questionnaire to each school, induce them to answer it and return it to the Department for processing. I note that Mr. Wyse is shaking his head. However, this must be done in the public interest and progress should have been made by the time the witnesses appear before the committee next year.

Ms Brigid McManus

Certainly we can consider what information we have. We are already examining this in terms of some of our internal management information. I would not underestimate the task — perhaps the Chairman is suggesting the Department should consider some kind of halfway house of information.

Chairman

No, I am not saying that. I seek adequate information in order that the Department can perform proper planning and implementation of future programmes.

Ms Brigid McManus

I accept that. My point is that the full-blooded inventory the Department carried out in Kildare for €1 million — we can provide some information on that to members — included design drawings, plan layouts and things one could not do in a survey of a school. The issue the Chairman is raising with the Department is whether there is some way we could have information on all our schools and their contents without going the full way of the Kildare survey.

Chairman

No, I made my remarks in the context of one of the issues we discussed today, namely, the use of prefabs, whether they are owned or rented, their quality, their age, how many pupils are condemned to prefabs and over what period of time. In the proper planning of the Department's schools programme, surely it should have such information. I do not seek designs and drawings. I refer to basic information that will allow the Department to carry out proper planning.

Ms Brigid McManus

I accept we would like to have more information and we will try to improve that over the next year. The issue as to whether this would be a full-blooded inventory, like we did in the Kildare case, is different, but I do not believe that is what the Chairman is asking for. I thank the Chair.

The witnesses withdrew.

Chairman

Is it agreed the committee should note Vote 26 and dispose of chapters 7.1 and 7.2? Agreed. Is there any other business? No.

Members will now agree an agenda for next Thursday's meeting. The agenda will include: the 2006 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts: Vote 19 — Office of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform; Vote 21 — Prisons, chapter 5 — the Management of Sick Leave in Prisons; and the Value for Money Report No. 56 of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Improving Performance: Public Service Case Studies, chapter 17 — Collection of Fines. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The committee adjourned at 1.55 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Thursday, 24 April 2008.