I thank the Chairman and the committee. It is an honour to be invited to be the chairman designate of the NEWB and I am pleased to be here to discuss my approach to the job, my priorities and some of the challenges facing the board. I have circulated a presentation to give the members of the committee some background information. I am aware that just ten minutes are available to me. If members dip into the documentation I have furnished, they will get some background knowledge about the organisation and will be able to understand the priorities and challenges it faces.
The NEWB is a relatively new organisation. It has been in existence for ten years. It was established as a statutory organisation in 2002 in line with the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, which replaced the old School Attendance Act 1926. The school attendance officers moved into the education welfare service. The board has 12 members and a chief executive officer. Obviously, the board and the agencies have a particular interest in this subject. One of the biggest changes to have happened during the NEWB's ten years in existence took place in 2009, when it was given responsibility for three additional services: the home, school, community liaison scheme; the school completion programme; and the visiting teacher for Travellers initiative, which was subsequently discontinued. The big challenge that the NEWB has been dealing with since 2009 has been the integration of those three services into a single streamlined service that offers schools, children and families an integrated approach to attendance, participation and retention. The next big change for the NEWB took place last year, when responsibility for the board moved from the Department of Education and Skills to the newly-established Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which takes an integrated cross-governmental approach to co-ordinating with other services. That was seen as a very positive move. A review of the NEWB is taking place at present in the context of the establishment of the new Family Support Agency, about which I will say more later.
Most members of the committee will be familiar with the key functions of the Act, which places an emphasis on promoting school attendance. It is a very progressive Act because in addition to requiring the board to log non-attendance, it also gives it responsibility for promoting attendance by helping parents to send their children to school, understand the value of education and resolve some of the issues that prevent children from attending school. The legislation does not superficially say that the board should merely log non-attendance. It requires the board to understand the factors that lead to non-attendance and gives the board a broad and progressive remit and a number of duties regarding suspensions, expulsions and refusals to enrol. The board has to be notified when such things happen. Parents have the right to appeal refusals to enrol. Education welfare officers frequently accompany parents and enable them to make appeals. The members of the committee might not know that the board also has responsibility for the registration of education outside recognised schools. Parents who choose to educate their children at home have to register with the NEWB. Some 777 children are currently registered as being educated at home. Children attending non-recognised schools, such as junior schools that are not paid for by the State, also have to be registered with the board. The board has responsibilities with regard to research and offering policy advice and guidance to the two Departments.
The committee will be interested in the part of the briefing document that deals with the budget and staffing. Like every statutory agency, the board is under significant pressure at the moment. The NEWB's budget is €9.6 million. Under the employment control framework, its 2012 target is to have 100 staff. It currently has 91 staff. I am glad to say the board has recently been given permission to recruit three additional members of staff and two managers. The budget for the school completion programme is €28 million and the budget for the home school liaison programme, which is provided by teachers in schools, is €25 million. The board's extended remit was to join those three services, which do different work, together. The focus of the 124 school completion programmes around the country is on retaining children in school. The policy of the Government is that children should be retained in school until they reach the leaving certificate stage of the senior cycle. The school completion programme is really an intervention with children through projects such as breakfast clubs and after-school programmes that aim to retain children in school. It is focused almost exclusively in disadvantaged areas. Home school liaison teachers work with parents on early intervention. The strongest way of securing children's engagement in school is to try to make a good connection between school and home for parents. Education welfare officers have a responsibility to ensure children attend school. If that is not happening, they have the statutory authority to take parents to court if they suspect that the parents are in breach of the law and their children are being denied an education. The three services have a different focus, but they are complementary. Essentially, many of them are working with the same families. An attempt was made in 2009 to make the services work better together and to integrate them better.
People are always interested in the facts in relation to school attendance. Over 800,000 children are in school in Ireland. People probably know there has been an increase. Anyone involved in education knows about the additional pressure on the education sector. Since 2005, the number of children in our primary schools has increased by 50,000 and the number of children in our post-primary schools has increased by 9,000. Schools are required to make annual returns to the NEWB in relation to children's absences. In 2009-10, the latest school year for which figures are available, children in primary school missed an average of 11 days and children in secondary school missed an average of 13 days. Over 111,000 pupils miss more than 20 days in school each year. In the 2009-10 year, there were ten expulsions from primary schools and 148 expulsions from post-primary schools. Expulsion continues to be a rare occurrence. It affects just 0.05% of students in our secondary schools. It is important for the committee to note that our figures are very similar to those in Northern Ireland and the UK. The rate of absence in 2009-10 was lower than the average rate for the previous five years, which is heartening. Internationally, school attendance has been a very stubborn problem to resolve.
Legal activity is rare. The board takes a welfare approach that involves trying to get to the bottom of the reasons children do not attend school in the first instance. When all of the welfare options have been exhausted, a school attendance notice or a summons can be issued and the parents can be brought to the District Court. That would be a very serious matter because they would face criminal charges. The burden of proof is high in such circumstances. There have been 200 convictions since 2006, when the first summonses were issued. A further 139 cases have been struck out, mainly because of general improvements. This part of the service is small but intensive. It aims to ensure the right of children to education is vindicated. I have spoken about education outside recognised schools.
I would like to speak about the priorities for the board. Under the legislation, the board has a responsibility to provide guidelines to schools and develop school attendance strategies. That is in train and will be completed this year. It will be very helpful to schools because it will clarify roles, give descriptions of good practice and be of practical support to teachers and schools.
As I said earlier, the implementation of the integrated service framework is the integration of those three services. The title is very strong namely, One Child, One Team, One Plan. It uses resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. There is one outcomes framework. In other words, school completion, home-school and educational welfare officers will be able to measure the impact their service is having, not just the amount of work they are doing but the impact and outcomes it is having. For example, an outcome might be finding a place for a child who is out of school and has no school place. That is a very positive outcome. There are also qualitative outcomes. Early intervention and resolving or breaking a cycle of non-attendance by a family would be an example of a very positive outcome.
As a result of the reduction in numbers in the public sector, there has been a reduction in numbers in the educational welfare service. A reconfiguration of that service is required. That will take place this year and will be a priority.
I have never worked in a service in which there was less demand than resources to meet it. Prioritisation of service is inevitable and a fact of life even before our current economic circumstances. In this case it is even more important that we prioritise those children who are most at risk of leaving school and review it on a constant basis. Part of how we do so is to use the data we have with schools and have good relationships with schools in terms of getting the information.
This year we want to continue to develop and imbed the national attendance awards. Children respond to praise as we all do, and promoting good behaviour is as important as identifying and criticising under-performance. Some children have superb attendance records so it is important to promote it.
I referred earlier to reviewing the guidelines and the assessment of education outside recognised schools. This involves children in non-recognised schools and those educated at home. The guidelines were put together in 2003 and we have learned a huge amount since then about that service. The guidelines will be reviewed this year.
There is a need for a review of school completion. That will be in the context of the reduction in money over the next three years for that service. We have to make sure the reductions are making it most efficient and are in the areas which have least impact on front-line services.
The priority will be maintaining the strong links with the child welfare service. There is a strong association between poor school attendance and child welfare problems. That was evident in the child death reviews published in the last month where a significant number of children who died were either in care or known to the State and had either poor school attendance or had dropped out of school completely. We must also maintain a strong engagement with the education system. I am referring to the education partners. For educational welfare to work well it has to be well connected to schools.
Leadership and the management of change may sound obvious. The change is an inevitable part of services now. Into the future we will be working with less resources. It is a big challenge to continue to meet our statutory obligations in that climate. The biggest potential in this area is in the integration of the three services whereby there can be a more streamlined and integrated approach.
The transition to the new CEO is also a challenge. The CEO will be leaving and the Department has sought sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the filling of the post. The transition organisation will be a priority for me. As regards maintaining the strong links with education in schools, I started my career as a teacher and spent the first ten years in a classroom so I have practical experience and I know the impact of poor school attendance on children and on teachers.
In terms of maintaining the strong links with child welfare services, I have spent a great deal of my life working in the HSE and the national education board. I know the impact and the relationship between poor school attendance and child welfare.
My view on the outcome of the review of the future location of the NEWB is that the task force report recommended that the NEWB would move to the new child and family support agency. That is being reviewed separately by the Department and the Minister will consider the outcome. In my view the NEWB straddles both education and welfare and it matters less where it lives. What is really important is the connections it has with both education and child services. Sustaining and implementing the integration process is critical. The international evidence is that it takes five years to fully implement something. Internationally we pay poorer attention than we should do to implementation. We need to keep our eye on that ball. We have put three years work into that service and the next two years will be critical. That integration process is public sector reform in practice. This is what the Government means when it talks about public sector reform.
I have included two pieces on my experience and skillset regarding this job. I am a clinical psychologist by profession and I started my career as a teacher. I have worked for the last 25 to 30 years in services for children and families working on the ground and managing those services. I have been the director of services for children and families in the HSE north east. I am also a former CEO and director of educational welfare services in the NEWB. Most recently I was the director of services in the Centre for Effective Services. That is a small all-island organisation whose job is to connect evidence and research to make practice better and to inform good policy so policy and practice are evidence-based. That is helpful in terms of the work of the NEWB. My skills are proven leadership and service delivery across a number of organisations. Not many people work across either professional silos or organisational silos. I have experience across education, health and social services. I am able to see the work through a number of lenses. I have significant senior management experience, particularly in the statutory sector. I understand the pressures and the obligations and the regulatory frameworks around statutory services. I have also extensive experience and expertise in applying evidence-based approaches to my work.
I thank the committee for its attention.
