Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 September 2014
241. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide the most recent annual service plan and five-year strategy statement for the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board. [36349/14]
View answerSection 47 of the Education and Training Boards Act 2013 (the Act) requires that, following the receipt of provisional expenditure limits from the Minister, the chief executive of an ETB will prepare and submit to the board a service plan setting out the services that the board proposes to provide, and an estimate of income and expenditure of the board during the financial year commencing on 1 January of the relevant year. 2014 was the first year in which this process could have taken place and expenditure limits were issued to ETBs. However, Boards were only constituted in accordance with the requirements of Section 30 of the Act in August and September of 2014 and my Department took the view that it would be more appropriate to wait until the newly constituted Boards were operational before commencing the service plan process. Accordingly, it is intended that service plans will be in place in 2015. Section 27 of the Act requires the preparation and adoption of s strategy statement by each ETB. However, this has not commenced to date in view of the significant work the ETBS have undertaken in 2014 relation to the amalgamation of the VECs and incorporation of the training function formerly undertaken by FÁS. I anticipate that the process of preparing strategy statements will commence later this year.
