€17.5m overspend on special needs assistants

THE Department of Education went €17.5 million over budget when it employed 350 extra special needs assistants to help pupils with disabilities last year.

But this fact has been welcomed by teachers’ unions as it means greater priority is being given to meeting the needs of children with physical disabilities and learning difficulties.

The department had been allocated €194.3m to employ an extra 674 assistants at primary level and 152 more at second level last year, to bring the total to 6,273 and 625 respectively.

But the department’s audited accounts for 2006 show it spent €192.4m on primary assistants and more than €19.5m on second-level assistants, a total of almost €212m or, 9% more than allocated.

In notes attached to the accounts, published by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), it is stated that “the excess arose due to the cost of additional special needs posts on the payroll that had not been factored into the original 2006 allocation”.

The department’s 2007 spending estimates in February showed 6,524 assistants were employed in primary schools last year — 250 more than the number for which it received a budget. The 726 assistants at second level last year was 100 above the numbers budgeted for.

The additional costs also include substitution cover for the assistants above what the department had expected to pay out.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation acknowledged the department’s commitment in providing extra resources.

General secretary John Carr said: “If a child needs a special needs assistant then a child needs an assistant, and once they meet the criteria of the Department of Education, one should be provided. This resource provision is part of the price of inclusion that is well worth paying.”

The figures also show savings of about €4m at primary level were made because of lower than expected spending on costs for special education court cases last year. The department spent 68 days in the High Court last year defending a case taken by the parents of autistic Co Wicklow boy Seán Ó Cuanacháin.

The judgment, delivered last March, found the department had provided the appropriate level of education, despite the arguments made on behalf of the boy’s parents.

Other savings were made on delays in rolling out the early education strand of the department’s social inclusion plans and the implementation of standardised testing in schools.