I move:
That a sum not exceeding £50,295,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1988, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education, for certain services administered by that office, and for payment of certain grants and grants-in-aid.
I am seeking the formal approval of the House for the four Votes, Numbers 27 to 30, which now make up the group of Votes for which I am responsible as Minister for Education.
Deputies have already had an opportunity of considering the broad outline in the 1988 Estimates, initially during the course of a debate in October last following the publication of the abridged Estimates and subsequently during the budget debate.
The revised Estimates now before the House are essentially the same as those published in the abridged Estimates volume.
I would like to draw the attention of Deputies to two points, however. The first relates to the title and lay-out of the Votes. Deputies will note that the Vote lay-out differs in many respects from that in the abridged Estimates volume published in October. There are now four Votes instead of five Votes which we have become used to and the arrangement of the subheads within the Votes has also been changed. This is the result of a decision which was taken in consultation with the Committee of Public Accounts, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Department of Finance and which was aimed at presenting a better overview of the education services in a format which matches as closely as possible the main programmes into which the services naturally fall. The services formerly included in the Vote for special schools, from which many other services were transferred to the Vote for Health some years back, have now been incorporated in the Vote for first level education. The Vote for the Office of the Minister for Education has been retained and the former Votes for primary education, post-primary education and higher education have been replaced by Votes for first-level education, second-level and further education and third level and further education respectively. The distribution of the services within these Votes has also been rearranged. More precise details of the services which have been transferred to different Votes within the Education group are listed on an appendix which will be found on page 101 of the revised Estimates volume.
The second point relates to the actual provision. The net voted provision in the five Education Votes shown in the abridged Estimates volume was £1,101.362 million. The net voted provision now shown in the four revised Votes is £1,093.121 million. Some considerable misunderstanding appears to have arisen when the revised Estimate volume was published and claims were made at the time that the revised Estimates contained additional cuts. This is not so. The difference in the two amounts is readily explained.
An estimating reduction of £5.5 million has been included in these revised Estimates — £3.5 million in the case of the salaries and allowances of secondary teachers, £1.5 million in the case of the pay element of grants to vocational education committees and £0.5 million in the case of higher education grants. This is not a "cut" and does not involve any reduction in the level of services. It is merely an estimating revision reflecting the fact that the actual outturn for these services in 1987 was substantially less than that anticipated when the abridged Estimate volume was prepared.
Because of changes in the operation of the Local Loans Fund, a provision of £9.064 million included in the abridged Estimates is no longer required and has not been included in the revised Estimates. Since 1983, capital for vocational school building has been provided directly from the Exchequer through the post-primary Vote and no new loans from the Local Loans Fund were drawn down. The servicing of existing loans continued to be a charge on the post-primary Vote, however. As a result of the Local Loans Fund (Amendment) Act, 1987, these loans are being written off and no provision to service them is required for 1988. This reduces the allocation required in the Vote for second level and further education by £9.064 million — £8.544 million in respect of VEC loans services from subhead F and £0.520 million in respect of loans raised by local authorities.
In the allocation of additional lottery funds, it was decided to transfer the provision for a number of services, amounting to £3.977 million from the Education Votes to the national lottery fund. Consequently, this £3.977 million has been removed from the revised Estimates. This, of course, does not in any way affect the level of services provided but merely represents an alternative source of funding. The services concerned and the amounts being provided in 1988 are as follows:
—The special provision for youth and sport activities hitherto included in the general provision for grants to vocational education committees — £1.7 million.
—The provision for grants in respect of Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann — £0.447 million.
—The provision for publications in Irish, excluding salary and overhead costs — £0.453 million.
—Grants to the Royal Irish Academy of Music — £0.635 million.
—Grant-in-aid of cultural organisations — £0.042 million.
—The provision for contributions to UNESCO and related scholarships and exchanges under cultural agreements previously included in the provision for international activities in the Vote for the Office of the Minister for Education — £0.700 million.
Finally, as provided for in the budget, the allocation for the school transport service has been increased by £3.8 million and an additional £6.5 million has been included for primary and post-primary capital building work.
The total gross provision in these four Votes is £1,176 million. This includes appropriations-in-aid amounting to £82.7 million, giving a net Exchequer provision of £1,093 million. In addition, a further £30.3 million is being provided from the proceeds of the national lottery. Since 1982, funds have been provided for the education services from the employment and training levy through the Vote for Labour. A total of £30 million is being provided in 1988 from the employment and training levy but it is being included in the Education Votes — £22.239 million in the Vote for second level and further education and £7.761 million in the Vote for third level and further education.
The gross overall provision, including the funding from the national lottery, therefore, will come to £1,206.3 million.
It is customary to compare the Estimates in any year with the outturn for the previous year. Normally this is useful and valid, but this method has its limitations. Capital expenditure by its nature does not have continuity and it is wrong to assume that a particular level of capital expenditure should be maintained year after year. In addition, a true comparison, even in the case of current expenditure, requires that account be taken of any significant factors which distort the relationship between one year and another. A number of such distorting factors are present this year. The main ones are as follows:
(i) A pay issue for national teachers, which normally would have been a charge on the 1988 account, had to be paid in 1987 due to the fact that January 1988 began with a bank holiday and a weekend. This resulted in one extra payday in 1987 and one fewer in 1988 and an imbalance between the two years of some £37.5 million.
(ii) As already mentioned, Local Loans Fund loans will not have to be serviced in 1988, a process begun in 1983. This saves £9.064 million.
(iii) Grants to Vocational Education Committees — subhead F. of the Vote for second level and further education — included a special non-recurring payment of £12.7 million in 1987 arising from ESF aid not received in 1986 and the Deputy opposite will know to what that refers. This was approved in a Supplementary Estimate in 1987.
(iv) Rates of pay and pensions have been increased with effect from 1 January 1988. Provision for this increase has not been included in individual Votes. Instead, a global provision has been made in Vote 46. The cost to the education services of pay increases not provided for in these Votes will be of the order of £24 million.
When these factors are taken into account, the overall 1988 allocation represents an increase of 2.5 per cent on the 1987 outturn of £1,258 million.
The provision for capital expenditure in the Education group of Votes for 1988 is now £61.175 million.
In addition to the capital provision in the Education Votes, a further capital provision of £10.5 million has been provided from the proceeds of the national lottery for the further development of youth and sport projects. The total capital provision, including the capital element of the national lottery funding, is £71.675 million.
The total non-capital provision in the Estimates is £1,115 million. When account is taken of national lottery funding, this rises to £1,135 million. When the special factors mentioned earlier are taken into consideration, the overall provision this year when compared with 1987 shows an increase of 4.7 per cent.
Staff constitute the main resources employed in education and not surprisingly, pay and pensions account for a total of £931 million. This does not include the cost of increases in remuneration and pensions which will be met from Vote 46. After adjustment for distorting factors, pay and pensions will cost 5.2 per cent more in 1988 than in 1987.
A total of £186 million is being made available for non-pay expenditure in these Votes and a further £18 million from the national lottery. The overall non-pay allocation thus comes to £204 million. After adjustment this represents an increase of 2.5 per cent on the 1987 outturn even though it appears to represent a decrease of £16 million.
Over 17 per cent of the total Exchequer spending continues to be devoted to education. The amount being provided for education in 1988 demonstrates once again the commitment of this Government to the best possible education service for our young people which can be made in the difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves.
I will now refer briefly to each of the individual Votes. The net estimate for the Vote for the Office of the Minister for Education is £50.2 million. This provision is required for salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education and for miscellaneous educational and cultural services. A number of services hitherto included in this Vote have been transferred. The provision for higher education grants and university scholarships, research grants and fellowships have been included in the Vote for third-level and further education. The provision for grants for clerical assistance in national and secondary schools has been divided between the first-level and second level and further education Votes. Other services have been transferred to the national lottery.
The provision for consultancy services is £250,000. Portion of this has been allocated for the computerisation of the main process for the Examinations Branch. At present work is proceeding as quickly as possible on the analysis and design and on the preparation of documentation necessary before issuing a request for proposals to the market later this year. It is my intention to implement the computerisation of the examinations on a phased basis with the examination results being processed by computer from 1989. The services of consultants will also be used to carry out a data planning study. This study will provide the framework for ensuring that future computer systems in the Department are developed in a way that takes full count of overall requirements. I am very glad to be able to announce to the House today that the computerisation of the examination results is proceeding.