Thank you, Chairman. I propose to make a brief opening statement to outline the current position relating to the school building programme in 2009. I will also deal with future plans to establish new primary schools, particularly VEC community national schools and Educate Together schools.
The multi-annual budget allocation for the school building programme for 2009 is almost €423 million for primary schools and €191 million for post-primary schools. The Minister announced 78 projects to commence construction in 2009. These projects will provide permanent primary school places for more than 16,250 students in 29 new schools and 28 extended and modernised schools. A further 14,075 students at post-primary level will benefit from ten new schools and 11 major extension and refurbishment projects. To date in 2009, five of these projects have reached practical completion, in other words, they are in operation; a further 14 are under construction; 27 are at tender stage; 19 have submitted their draft tender documents and these are being examined by the Department, while tender documents have yet to be received on the remaining 13. The majority of these projects are sufficiently advanced and it is likely they will proceed to site in 2010. Any projects that proceed to site at this stage of the year will incur very little expenditure in the current financial year, with the bulk of the expenditure falling for payment in 2010. These are contractual commitments. Capital expenditure to the end of October was €368 million, which is almost €112 million below the anticipated figure for the schools programme.
The main reason for expenditure being less than originally anticipated on major school building projects is that it has taken longer than initially anticipated to progress projects to construction. The other significant contributory factor is that tenders obtained for this programme are yielding a reduction of up to 30% as compared to prices at the height of the construction boom. The projects planned to go to construction in 2009 were the first batch of projects to be tendered under the new form of public works contract which is now used throughout the public sector. This is a mandatory form of contract which became mandatory in February 2008. A bedding-down period has ensued while the industry develops its expertise and familiarity with the new requirements.
The need to ensure that the updated tender documentation is fully compliant with the new contractual requirements has resulted in some delays. I will deal with this aspect in some detail at a later stage in light of questions from members. It is a very important consideration because the new contractual arrangements put a greater onus on builders than would have been the case under the older regime. As the school programme involves a large number of relatively small projects, these delays have had a significant cumulative effect on anticipated expenditure over the year.
In response to these developments, the planning and building unit organised workshops to brief schools and their design teams on the requirements of the new form of contract. These workshops set out and explained the process of preparation or revision of the required documentation and outlined a timeframe for the submission of the completed tender documents. We would anticipate that the time taken to prepare tender and associated documentation will reduce in the coming months as the overall construction industry becomes familiar with the new forms of public works contracts. This is the situation as in recent times the volume of issues that has arisen as a result of mistakes, for instance, has declined. We will deal with this aspect in later questioning. Officials in the planning and building unit are continuing to give guidance and assistance to design teams in this regard. There is constant interaction between the Department and the individual design teams regarding a multiplicity of technical issues which will arise. A further series of workshops is due to be held this month and an extensive suite of technical guidance documentation is available on the Department of Education and Science website and through the planning and building unit, for the use of design teams. In addition to the major projects, the Department has a number of other schemes in operation, such as the summer works scheme, the energy efficiency scheme, the permanent accommodation scheme and the emergency works scheme. In 2009, almost 1,180 projects in 967 schools received funding under the summer works scheme. This year, the summer works scheme was expanded to include insulation efficiency measures in schools and approximately 1,600 schools have applied for this once-off funding to upgrade the insulation in their attics and external cavity walls. Yesterday the Department received a further influx of 100 applications under that scheme and we anticipate a further substantial number in the next few days. All those 1,600 applications have been given approval and in the majority of cases the work has already been completed. In addition to the normal works in 2010, part of the summer works scheme fund will be set aside for specified water conservation measures to help schools to reduce water wastage and the cost of water bills. Many of these schemes involve schools carrying out the work in the summer months when school buildings are not in use; therefore the majority of the claims for expenditure incurred arise after the summer when the schools submit the appropriate certification to the Department. The minor works grant, which is paid to all primary schools on an annual basis will be issued before the end of this month, at a total cost of approximately €28 million. The position relating to overall expenditure will continue to be monitored closely by the Department on a daily basis.
In addition to the major projects already mentioned, the first bundle of four public-private partnership schools went to construction in March 2009 and will be completed in September 2010. The Minister also announced the appointment of a preferred tenderer for the second bundle of six schools on 26 October and it is expected that this bundle will commence construction in the spring of 2010. As the committee will be aware, the Minister has also indicated he will be making an announcement regarding further projects to proceed to tender and construction in 2010. The Department is currently working full-time on this project.
With regard to future plans to establish new schools, in September 2008 the Department initiated a review of the procedures for the establishment of new primary schools by the Commission on School Accommodation. The technical working group established to undertake this review commenced its work in December 2008. It is expected the review of procedures for recognising primary schools will be complete and revised arrangements will be in place by the end of 2010. We anticipate the report from that group will be submitted to the Minister before the end of this year. This is the timetable towards which we are working. In the interim period and while the review is ongoing, the forward planning section of the Department has carried out a study of the country to identify the areas where, due to demographic changes, there may be a requirement for significant additional school provision at both primary and post-primary levels in the coming years. This study has been conducted using data from the Central Statistics Office, the General Register Office and the Department of Social and Family Affairs, in addition to recent schools' enrolment data.
The study indicates that the requirement for additional provision of primary schools in years 2010, 2011 and 2012 is likely to be greatest in more than 40 selected locations across the country based on significant changes to the demographics of those areas. These are mainly close to existing large urban centres. This information has been circulated to all existing school patrons who have been invited to bring forward proposals for the expansion of existing schools or indeed to put themselves forward as patron for any new primary school, should it be required. The requirement for the establishment of new schools will, of course, be lessened where it is possible to expand and extend existing schools in those areas.
As the number of births in the country continues to rise, the Department is faced with the challenge of providing accommodation to cater for a 10% increase in school-aged children and to establish where in the country this accommodation will be required. In 2000 there were 54,789 births in Ireland, while the 2008 figure is 75,065, a 37% increase over the period. The 2008 figure is the highest number recorded since 1896 and it means that the total enrolments in primary schools may grow from just less than 500,000 pupils in the 2008-09 year to in excess of 590,000 by year 2020. While these figures indicate the situation at national level, the challenge is to establish in which locations the school-going cohort will increase most significantly so that sufficient school accommodation can be put in place to meet demand.
To this end the Department is utilising a geographical information system, GIS. As the Chairman will recall, we gave a demonstration of the system to the committee earlier this year and since that time further enhancements have been made. The GIS allows the Department to conduct detailed analysis on the demographics of each part of the country and enables us to model a range of forecast scenarios for each area for the coming years and assess the likely changes to the school-going population in those areas. The accommodation needs of each area will be considered in this context and addressed under the school building and modernisation programme consistent with the priority attaching to individual projects and the availability of funding as a result of the Estimates process.
The two existing community national schools have made good progress since the Department last reported to the committee on developments in this area in April 2009. The current number of children attending Scoil Choilm and Scoil Ghrainne is 360 with a combined staff of 28. The official opening of Scoil Choilm's new premises in Porterstown, Dublin 15, took place on 22 May last. Work began on the new permanent building for Scoil Ghrainne in Phibblestown at the beginning of the summer and it is expected to be completed by early 2011.
A joint Department-VEC steering group continues to oversee the development of the new schools, including arrangements for the delivery of religious education and evaluation of the pilot phase of the new model. The pilot phase of this new model provides an important learning opportunity and its evaluation is a critical element of the project in terms of future roll-out. A sub-committee of the Department-VEC steering group has developed a framework of evaluation criteria to assess the project from its inception through to its ongoing operational stage. A formal process has also been established to collate enrolment and other key information from the schools at start-up stage and to allow useful comparative data to be collected over the period of the pilot. As an example of some data, we have recently obtained on those schools, of the enrolment in Scoil Choilm, 16% is Catholic, 12% is Orthodox, 8% Pentecostal, 26% other Christian, 26% Muslim, 2% Hindu and Buddhist, and 1% declaring of no religion. That indicates a very broad range. It also indicates that the choice of this location was good in terms of identifying what the issues will be in educating that very eclectic mix of children. We will probably discuss this matter later. It will probably be somewhat more difficult when there is a preponderance of a single group with small minorities of other groups. We look forward to that challenge in terms of the future expansion of the project.
The views of teaching staff, management, parents, pupils, local community, neighbouring schools, the inspectorate and other relevant education partners are being sought as part of the evaluation. Having visited the schools on a number of occasions, I would emphasise that the involvement of the parents in this process is critical and is the key to the success of the development of the model. Above all things, for future roll-out I would advise that the parental involvement be maintained. The pilot phase has seen the building of links between the schools and their communities, and parent association committees have become increasingly active in both schools.
Primary legislation is required to facilitate VEC involvement in the provision of primary education. Obviously it is involved and has been involved for many years in the post-primary sector, but primary education is a new departure for it. The Education (Patronage) Bill 2009 has been included in the Government's legislative programme in this regard as an "A" list item for publication in the current Oireachtas session. The Government approved the draft heads of a Bill in June of this year and drafting of the legislation is under way in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel.
As already mentioned, the study carried out by the forward planning section of the Department has identified more than 40 locations across the country where the requirement for the provision of additional primary schools in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 is likely to be greatest, based on significant changes to the demographics of those areas. All existing school patrons have been invited to bring forward proposals for the expansion of existing schools or indeed for the patronage of any new primary schools, which may be required. The extension of the community national school model will be considered in that context. The Minister has indicated that he intends expanding the pilot to include two further schools in 2010.
As I am conscious of the need to keep our opening remarks to a minimum, I will conclude. We will respond to questions members of the committee might have.
