As the Deputy may be aware, Section 18 of the Education Act 1998 requires Boards of Management to keep all proper and usual accounts and records of all monies received by it or expenditure of such monies incurred by it. Boards are also required to make school accounts available for inspection by me and by parents of students in the school.
While schools in the Voluntary Secondary Sector have been submitting accounts to the Financial Services Support Unit (FSSU) for a number of years, those at Primary level submitted accounts to the FSSU for the first time in 2020 for the 2018/19 school year. Schools in the Community and Comprehensive Sector submitted accounts to the FSSU for the first time in 2021 for the 2019/20 school year.
The expansion of the FSSU to schools in the Primary, Community and Comprehensive Sectors commenced on a phased basis in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Therefore, the main focus of the FSSU in recent years has been to provide advice and support to these schools in financial governance and strengthen the existing arrangements including standardising arrangements for compliance with accounting requirements under Section 18 of the Education Act 1998.
School Accounts for the 2020/21 school year are being submitted to the FSSU currently. Accounts for the 2021/22 school year will not be submitted to the FSSU until February 2023.
The return of school accounts for the 2019/20 school year shows that over 99% of Primary schools and all Voluntary Secondary, Community and Comprehensive schools submitted accounts to the FSSU.
The next phase will include expansion of the FSSU role which will include providing my Department with detailed analysis of the information included in school accounts in so far as it relates to grant funding to schools from monies provided by the Oireachtas for the purposes of carrying on that school or centre for education as provided for under Section 18(2) of the Education Act 1998. This will include analysis of costs by school type and size.
