Vol. 783 No. 2
104. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills the number of grants awarded or paid to students by Student Universal Support Ireland; if he will give a guarantee that all student grant applications will be processed and those students who qualify will be paid by Christmas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51420/12]
108. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will outline in detail the process of outsourcing the scanning of grant application documents to a third party in County Cork; if a cost-benefit analysis was conducted prior to the awarding of the contract to the company; if the contract was put out to public tender; and the cost differential of outsourcing this element of the grant application process of Student Universal Support Ireland to delivering it in-house. [51342/12]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 104 and 108 together.
The situation in relation to the 66,000 applications to Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, is as follows. Some 22,000 are complete, with some 12,000 either awarded or provisionally awarded and some 10,000 refused. Once awarded, payment is dependent on the verification of attendance by the institution and the submission of bank details by the student. Some 4,420 students have now been paid and SUSI is continuing to make payments on a weekly basis to ensure students can be paid as expeditiously as possible once they have been awarded a grant.
Some 21,000 applications are with SUSI for processing as we speak. The remaining 23,000 applications are awaiting submission of documentation by the students concerned. More than 50% of students in this category have made no response at all to requests by SUSI for the required supporting documentation so it must be assumed that many of these are not planning to pursue their applications any further.
SUSI is aiming to achieve a target of 33,000 awards in total by the end of the year and I expect that target to be met. SUSI is staffed to the level that has been requested and all the necessary resources should be in place to enable it to process applications to completion, subject to all the necessary documentation being in order to enable it to make a decision in each case. This week, a further 50 additional temporary staff have been approved to ensure that all targets are met from this point of view.
SUSI will endeavour to ensure that students who are awarded a maintenance grant will be paid before the end of the year. Some students may not receive their grant until the beginning of January due to the requirements in respect of bank details and verification of attendance, together with the banking restrictions over the holiday period. However, every effort will be made by SUSI to ensure that all successful grant applicants are paid by December.
The Student Support Act 2011 made provision for the appointed awarding authority to outsource particular functions or aspects of the student grant application process where it considered it appropriate to do so, subject to the general superintendence and control of the appointed awarding authority. As part of its overall implementation plan, SUSI went to tender for the document management service. The tender was published in the Official Journal of the European Union using the competitive dialogue process. The preferred bidder was selected on the basis of the marks awarded by the evaluation committee. While a cost-benefit analysis was not specifically carried out prior to the award of the contract, it was considered that outsourcing was an appropriate solution for the document management process. This was on the basis of the cyclical nature of the administration of the student grants, the volume of applications and the associated requirements for documentary evidence within a tight timeframe.
This scalable outsourcing solution is more cost effective as it is resourced by contract staff to deal with particular peaks and troughs in inbound communications over the course of the year. In addition, it provides the necessary IT infrastructure and costly scanning equipment that is required for an operation of this nature. The cost of providing this service in-house would have involved significant investment, including the upgrading of equipment on an ongoing basis and would have had significant staffing and accommodation implications.
I thank the Minister for his response and for the updated figures. Once again I acknowledge the approach he took last week in that he took responsibility for this issue, which is very important and welcome. I said at the time that I felt the Minister also needed to take responsibility to ensure students would be paid before Christmas and I asked that he meet SUSI and tease out exactly where things were. In his response, he might outline what meetings he has had with SUSI in the past week and if he had any meetings in the preceding weeks.
I see from the Minister's updated figures that 22,000 applications have been decided on. Last week, it was 20,000 and approximately two weeks ago, it was 18,000. In the past week, the number of applications decided on increased by 2,000. Last week, SUSI outlined and, indeed, the Minister said in the Dáil, that decisions would be running at a rate of 800 per day up to maybe 1,300. That is obviously not happening. Unless that happens quickly, there is no way the number the Minister outlined today of 33,000 awards will be made by the end of the year.
Staff in county councils and VECs throughout the country, who are trained in this, have now finished processing the grant applications of continuing students. Has the Minister considered engaging them to assist?
At a rate of 2,000 per week with six weeks to Christmas, only an additional 12,000 applications will be decided by Christmas. One would expect the staff working on this to be at maximum level, so unless further action is taken, many students who are in exceptionally precarious financial circumstances will continue to suffer.
The Deputy asked a number of questions and I will try to reply to them seriatim. I have been in contact with SUSI. I have not had physical meetings but the Department's officials have had such meetings. I have spoken to the chief executive of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, CDVEC. Ten minutes ago I checked with the principal officer in the Department by telephone to confirm that all the facts I have put on the record of the House are accurate and in accordance with the facts as he knows them.
The Deputy's calculations are right. In processing over 2,000 per week we would not meet the target I have been assured will be met before Christmas. The reason for the officials' certainty that they will meet it is that the number of staff has been increased quite considerably so capacity will accelerate over the next few weeks. I intend to monitor the situation closely. If there is any change in any of the targets that have been formally communicated to the House, I will communicate it to the Deputies.
The Deputy asked about payment. As he will understand, it is a two-way exchange. Where all the details are available and we are still in working time without the disruption of the Christmas break and the holidays - Christmas Day this year is immediately after a weekend so there will be a prolonged closedown or limited service, even possibly affecting some of the IT activities - they might be processed but students might not get their lodgement until late in December or early in the new year.
With regard to the company in Cork which got the contract, the Minister said no cost benefit analysis was carried out. Unfortunately, however, there is a cost and it is being borne by the students. Nearly every Deputy has received probably in excess of 300 e-mails from students, many of whom are complaining that documentation which they previously sent in is now being requested again. This is still occurring right up to today. In respect of the targets that have been set, the Minister said it was their certainty rather than his that the targets would be met. In fairness, the Minister said that every staffing resource which has been requested has been allocated. That will give some comfort to people. However, there is a responsibility on the Minister not to rely on their certainty but to be certain himself that the targets will be met. There is also an onus on him to look at the procedures they are implementing to try to achieve their targets. If he is not happy with them, he should not wait for SUSI to request more resources. I have no confidence in SUSI or the CDVEC. It is clear that the targets they set initially have not been met and the targets they outlined to the committee last week are not being met, so the onus is on the Minister to look at the procedures and to allocate additional resources. He should not wait for those bodies to refer back to him on that because they might not do so.
The Deputy might not have heard me or I might not have articulated it well enough, but while a cost benefit analysis was not specifically carried out prior to the award of the contract, it was considered that outsourcing was an appropriate solution for the document management process. That is the activity that is taking place. The reason was the peak nature of this once-in-a-year event for new applicants. Obviously, students in second, third and fourth year are dealing with the 66 local authorities and VECs. There was general consensus, and nobody disputed it, that one management body operating the system of administration was preferable to the 66 existing bodies.
We had many complaints about delays in paying grants but the Department had no responsibility in the area. This is our first time having responsibility to administer it. Lessons must be learned. I have said to staff in my Department and in the City of Dublin VEC that we must get the grants processed and the money into the bank accounts as quickly as possible and, when that is done, we will do an analysis of how it worked, how we can make it work better and how we can speed it up. Perhaps we can do some pre-application work and work on related matters so that it flows more freely. That is my intention. I will keep a constant eye on it between now and Christmas. The aim is to get 33,000 applications cleared by Christmas. Although the money may not come into the accounts, the aim is to get the applications cleared. If there is any variation, I will personally notify both Deputies.
With regard to the 21,000 applications in hand for processing, a dent has not been made in it in the past week or so. The 21,000 applications and packages have not been checked to ensure all documentation is there. The expected return rate, where applications are incomplete, is up to 40%. Given the major challenge, and when many applications have not been opened or double checked, how will we reach the target of 33,000 awarded by the end of the year? Many of them will have to be returned. The total number of grant awards expected to be made through SUSI is 35,000 and 33,000 represents a high proportion of them. Some 21,000 remain to be checked and perhaps the Minister for Education and Skills can explain how they will be processed.
What measures is SUSI taking to ensure it gets the bank account details of students so that, once it decides to make an award, there is no further delay? That is a practical step that could be taken.
I will give the Minister two examples of the frustration that occurs. On 5 November, I e-mailed SUSI on behalf of a constituent. Some 14 days later, I received a response from the SUSI helpdesk about the e-mail, which I sent from my Oireachtas e-mail account to the e-mail address we were given. The response, 14 days after I first e-mailed, was that SUSI was unable to discuss the application for data protection reasons. I am sure the Minister for Education and Skills thinks this is unacceptable and that the system is not working. If it is not working for us as public representatives making representations on behalf of students, it is certainly not working for the students.
I received an e-mail from another student who applied in July. On 18 October, she received a letter stating her application was successful and to log onto the SUSI account profile to input her details. When she tried, she was unable to do so. The indication was that the application had not been processed. Since 18 October, she has spent over €30 of credit telephoning SUSI but has been unable to get through because she is put on hold. She sent three e-mails and each got the response that she would be contacted within one working day. Today, she received an e-mail requesting her PPS number, her SUSI application number, her phone number and her e-mail address, despite the fact that SUSI had just e-mailed her. That is the response students and elected representatives are getting from the SUSI helpdesk. It is simply unacceptable.
In response to Deputy McConalogue's question, Abtran has 79 staff and is taking on 50 extra staff. Abtran assures me it is satisfied that will be sufficient to process the applications. I will be constantly monitoring the volume of processing taking place. Should more staff be necessary, I will ensure Abtran takes on extra staff to do the task for which it has been contracted.
The story Deputy O'Brien put on the record of the House is unacceptable to any Deputy. If he gives my office the details of the case I will pursue it. There is, however, a data protection issue in asking someone for their bank account details. This is not confined to the operation of SUSI.
The e-mail I sent inquired about the status of a particular application. I received a reply 14 days later to say SUSI could not discuss the application. It had nothing to do with bank account details.
In some cases, even when the third party is a public representative who has been asked by the citizen in question to make an inquiry, the interpretation by the Data Protection Commissioner, who gives instructions to the relevant bodies, can frequently be that without express permission conveyed by the constituent a service agency cannot share information with a third party. It is unsatisfactory. I have encountered it myself. It is something we need to deal with, on a wider scale. If an Oireachtas committee were to discuss this matter it would be useful for all of us.
The Minister outlined how when a student is awarded a grant there can then be a delay because the student must go back to the college to get confirmation of registration and must also get bank account details. Could we not ensure that bank account details are available in advance so that, at least, that element of the delay could be avoided?
I will inquire about the details of that. There may be a problem in providing bank details in advance. I will, however, make the inquiry and get back to the Deputy.
105. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills his views on claims by the National Adult Learning Organisation, AONTAS, that a lack of financial support and suitable course options are the biggest challenges for adults returning to education; and the efforts being made by him to integrate adult guidance with course provision, connect with employers, explore other funding models for part-time learners and establish better systems to gather evidence on the effectiveness of adult learning courses. [51524/12]
My Department funds a range of further education and training programmes that offer guidance, access, transfer and progression opportunities for learners, involving 300,000 places. In addition to the provision of programmes, my Department and the Department of Social Protection support learners attending courses through the provision of payments, allowances, and maintenance grants.
The Government has embarked upon a major programme of reform in the further education and training sectors including establishment of SOLAS and the education and training boards. The Government through the Pathways to Work document and Intreo, the new integrated employment and support service, is also introducing improved service supports for the unemployed. AONTAS, in its recent position paper on budget 2013, indicates strong support for these structural reforms.
The Government's objective in this area is to raise the educational and skills level of adult learners, particularly among the unemployed, in order to help them to meet the requirements of the modern labour market.
If the Minister of State has not seen the report I refer to I will pass on a copy to him.
I have seen it.
One of the key findings of the report is the level of frustration felt by adult learners regarding the courses they are directed to take. Some felt the courses did not suit their skill sets, were leading nowhere or were not long enough to acquire the skills they needed to enter the workforce.
I welcome the programme of reform being undertaken by the Department of Education and Skills. The Education and Training Boards Bill has the potential to be one of the most reforming items of legislation in this area. For that reason, it is important that a voice be given to community representatives on the education and training boards. This is something we can discuss on Committee Stage of the Bill.
The amount of money allocated to this area is a small part of the overall education budget. I hope the Minister of State shares my analysis that this section of the budget needs to be protected because we are talking about people who are going back to further education in the hope of coming off the unemployment register and securing employment. I hope the Minister will take this into account during the budget deliberations.
I have read the document from AONTAS and I have substantial ongoing communication with AONTAS and also with NALA, another entity involved in adult education. Both organisations were involved in feeding information into the reform process outlined by Deputy O'Brien.
We were careful in the preparation of last year's and this year's budgets to ensure the spend in the area is protected as much as possible against the harshest winds of the recession we are all suffering at the moment. We have been creative and innovative in looking at other mechanisms for funding that sector. The Springboard programme assists those who have a third level qualification to re-engineer that qualification by engaging in a one or two-year course that would allow them to use their existing skills to look at career opportunities in other areas that might not have been apparent two or three years ago. They are undertaking those courses free of charge and being supported by the State while doing so.
A new labour market education and training fund will be announced shortly. Recipients will be awarded grants from a fund of €20 million that will provide 6,500 places for young people who are currently unemployed, more often than not long-term unemployed, to assist them in beginning the journey back to work. For many it will be a long and difficult journey but we must start it and allow them to gain the skills they will need to re-enter work. We are not just funnelling money through the usual channels, other innovative approaches are being taken to assist people who are in a difficult place.
That is important because the figures show 300,000 people are accessing some form of learning or education, reflecting the huge appetite for people to get upskilled because they are aware of its value. There is also a social value, so that €20 million is welcome. We will await the budget, however, to see what impact it has. I take heart from the Minister of State's recognition of the importance of the area and I hope that will be reflected in the budget.
One of the most informative meetings I have had as Minister of State with responsibility for this area was a learners' forum organised by AONTAS six months ago where we spent the morning discussing with learners their needs and aspirations for what they want to achieve through interacting with the State and the learning supports it offers. The intention of SOLAS in the future is that the learner and his needs will be at the heart of the work we do and we will constantly interact with him during the learning process and afterwards to ensure the intervention we provide is of the highest quality and sets him on a path back into the workplace.
106. Deputy Seamus Healy asked the Minister for Education and Skills in view of the issue of bullying, if he will revert to the situation whereby career guidance teachers are ex-quota in secondary schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51561/12]
107. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills the discussions he has had with the Institute of Guidance Counsellors since September 2012 in relation to the impact of the cut to guidance hours which has resulted in schools only being able to provide an emergency counselling service to students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51421/12]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 106 and 107 together.
Guidance is a whole-school activity and not just a matter for school guidance counsellors alone. Under existing arrangements each school develops a whole-school guidance plan as a means of supporting the needs of its students. I acknowledge that bringing guidance provision within quota is challenging for schools but this must be seen in the context of our very difficult budgetary constraints. The alternative was to adjust the staffing schedule. I explained this to the Institute of Guidance Counsellors when I met its members after the budget.
As part of the budgetary measures, my Department helped shelter the impact for DEIS post-primary schools by improving their standard staffing allocations. My Department has existing arrangements in place for providing short-term support to schools that are dealing with particularly acute incidents that arise due to tragic accidents, bereavements and so on.
On helping to improve how we tackle bullying I expect to receive the action plan in the coming weeks from the working group I established to look at this issue.
I thank the Minister for his reply. We need a structure at school level to deal with issues that arise from the students' point of view, be they bullying or other personal matters. They must be able to interact with the structure and be comfortable with it.
Is the Minister satisfied that what is in place is adequate to do that? Along with many guidance counsellors and teachers, I am not satisfied that the current situation is adequate particularly to deal with the area of bullying, which, unfortunately, is widespread and some would say is almost of epidemic proportions. Will the Minister carry out a review of how the changes made in the budget have impacted on schools and students? When will the report of the working group, which the Minister just mentioned, become available and will he publish that report?
I will deal with the last part of the Deputy's question first. The working party that was established earlier this year hopes to complete its draft report by the end of the month. It will then be circulated to the interested parties for comment and therefore we will have it very early in the new year. That is the timetable to which we are working. It is an interdepartmental working group along with representatives of other bodies, including the Irish Second-Level Students' Union and others.
Will the Minister be publishing that report?
I will certainly publish it. The report will be sent to the various interested parties for comment and any changes, among other things. It will then be finalised and we will publish it as soon as possible after that.
On the other matters the Deputy raised, let me outline what is available for school communities from the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. The support of the whole school community, parents and the relevant external agencies such as the National Educational Welfare Board, NEWB, and NEPS is key to the provision of guidance and support to schools in addition to what schools already have. Psychologists from NEPS also provide a range of supports through schools, including the promotion of mental health material among the general student body and assistance in supporting pupils with particular social, emotional or behavioural difficulties. NEPS has provided guidance to all schools and school communities on structures and processes to be put in place in the event of critical incidents.
Upon request by school authorities NEPS psychologists provide direct on-site assistance to schools in coping with the aftermath of such traumatic events. The Department is also aiming to launch the guidelines on mental health for post-primary schools later this year. These guidelines aim to support schools in developing a whole-school approach to mental health promotion and suicide prevention and are of relevance to members of the school community. In particular they have been developed to support principals, guidance counsellors, student support teams and teachers.
When this announcement was made in last year's budget, we warned that it could lead to the end of career guidance as a profession, as well as impacting on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students, especially those with mental health concerns. At the time the Minister assured us that schools would continue to provide guidance to their students and he was confident that schools would act in the best interests of students when determining precisely how to use the teaching resources available to them. However, the reality has turned out to be somewhat different. As a result of the cuts the Minister has implemented, schools are no longer managing to maintain a sufficient service. According to the president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, Mr. Gerry Flynn, the decision to remove guidance provision has led to a dismantling of a support service in schools that had taken years to establish. In addition, the decision is effectively institutionalising inequality in our schools, where only the students who can afford access to private counselling are in a position to get the help they require in certain instances. What meetings has the Minister had with representatives of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors to discuss the impact the cut is having on services in schools?
I have had a number of meetings, one of which was a recent informal meeting at the exhibition in the RDS on third level options.
I do not accept the assertions in the quotations the Deputy read from the letter to which he referred. Some smaller schools at post-primary level have had difficulties in regard to the matter but the larger schools still have the service of full guidance teachers where their numbers warrant that. The services available from National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, is an indication of the sad reality that there have been traumatic incidents in some schools, and we have had too many of those. I have been told by schools which have had this dreadful experience that the service available from NEPS is extremely good.
Clearly, there is an emerging role for the provision of pastoral care within the post-primary sector as distinct from career guidance per se. We have to examine the way in which the junior cycle reforms will be implemented, which will address the issues of facilitating children to make sure that they take care of themselves. I am mindful there is a later question on this matter and that the Deputy has tabled a later question to me on this matter. This matter is not only the responsibility of one person or a few people in a school, it must be part and parcel of the culture of the entire school.
I accept the Minister's final point. It is extremely important there would be a whole school approach to this matter and that it would not only be the responsibility of the guidance counsellor. The changes in this area made in the last budget have affected the support and work to prevent the difficulties that have arisen and continue to arise. My understanding from schools in my constituency and further afield is that the changes have been detrimental to the provision of services for students. I again ask the Minister to agree to review the situation and to establish the impact of the changes on schools because that is vital if we are to do anything more for students into the future.
I believe the Minister would recognise that the role of the guidance counsellor is not only to provide career guidance but, as the title indicate, also to be a counsellor to students on many issues.
A guidance counsellor is the first contact and a key person students seek out when they have a particular issue and these would be issues long before NEPS might become involved. We are now two and half months into the new school year and it is clear the impact on students of the measures the Minister introduced last year has been chronic and it is getting more difficult for them all the time. There is a need for the Minister to revisit this issue in the upcoming budget. The changes have created difficulties for students and we have seen particular instances of that. We have also seen tragic incidents recently of the increasing issues with which students have to deal and much of this also falls within the remit of the guidance counsellors. The Minister needs to revisit this in the budget and I ask him to commit to do that here today.
There are two issues here. The first is that we must recognise that this measure was introduced in order to comply with the necessity to reduce expenditure in the overall education budget. I had two choices: I could have disimproved the pupil-teacher ratio in second level schools to achieve the target or I could have referred back to the principals, who have a major leadership role in our post-primary schools as well as in our primary schools, to give them the power to use and deploy the guidance teacher within the school. Virtually all guidance counsellors have a teaching qualification and an expertise in a number of subjects as well as the specialty for which they subsequently studied. Power in this respect was devolved to the principals to deploy as they saw best fit. I think that was a better option than the other one, which would have been to disimprove the pupil-teacher ratio which probably would have resulted in some schools losing subject choice.
The second point is that guidance and counselling responsibility and pastoral care, if one wants to use it in that sense, has to be the responsibility of the entire school community, as Deputy Healy has recognised. In that regard, where a serious incident occurs back-up resources through NEPS, as I have described, are available to the school in question.
The last point I make to Deputy McConalogue is that the first point of contact in this respect in my experience, speaking as someone who has some knowledge of education, is the key teacher in the classroom, the teacher who knows better than perhaps other teachers a particular student. We have all known those teachers. If a young student starts to go off form, so to speak, it is quite possible the first point of contact would be that the classroom subject teacher would ask the student what is wrong, if there is a difficulty or something the student wants to talk about, and then refer the student.
Guidance counsellors will not see the deterioration in behaviour of a young person in a classroom because they do not have that contact, but the English, Irish or geography teacher will be the first point of contact and the relationship between the subject teachers and the school's pastoral care service is as critical as the engagement of the guidance counsellor by the student. A student may not want to go to a guidance counsellor. It is more complex than the way it is presented by certain people.
