Róisín Shortall
Ceist:234 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Education and Science the way in which he will fund schools for secretarial and care-taking services in order that they can meet their commitments under the Minimum Wage Act. [29967/00]
Written Answers. - Secretarial and Caretaking Services.
My Department provides funding towards the cost of secretarial and caretaking services in primary and secondary schools under two separate schemes. One scheme is the 1978-79 scheme for the employment of school secretaries in primary and secondary schools, and caretakers in primary schools, under which my Department meets the full cost of salary. Pay scales for secretaries under this scheme, as for secretaries and caretakers employed in the comprehensive and community and VEC school sectors, are determined centrally.
However, this scheme has been superseded in the PESP Agreement of 1992 by a more extensive grant scheme.
The PESP scheme provides additional per capita grants for primary and secondary schools towards secretarial and caretaking services. These grants are paid as additions to the standard per capita grants. This scheme does not provide for the linking of the additional per capita grants to any particular pay scale. The scheme, by its nature, is flexible and gives boards of management discretion as to the manner in which secretarial and caretaking services are to be provided. Secretaries and caretakers employed by schools are employees of the individual schools and my Department does not have any role in determining the pay and conditions under which they are employed.
At primary level I increased the rates of grant by 33% from £30 per pupil to £40 per pupil with effect from January this year. furthermore, with effect from September of this year, I extended the scheme to all primary schools. In addition, I have set a minimum grant of £2,400 per annum which is payable to all schools with 60 pupils or less.
These improvements mean that, for the first time, all primary schools now qualify for an annual grant to assist them with the provision of secretarial and caretaking services. The Government's commitment in this regard can also be measured by the fact that the funding allocated for this purpose, which was approximately £5.6 million in 1999, has increased this year to approximately £12.2 million and will further increase in 2001 to approximately £16.8 million.
At second level, in addition to the funding arrangements outlined above, schools now receive additional annual funding of £20 per pupil, with a minimum payment of £4,000 per school under the school services support fund. This fund will channel an additional £7 million to second level schools each year. Provision for secretarial and caretaking support is a particular focus of this fund.
The introduction of this additional annual funding is a significant contribution towards enabling schools to meet these commitments.