Teaching pay fund not hit, says Cork ETB

The head of a Cork educational authority has insisted that both funding for teachers’ salaries and the body’s capital expenditure were not cut as a result of legal settlements it paid out over a number of years.

A whistleblower who had highlighted oversight issues at the former County Cork VEC disputed the statement, and said “cuts must have been made somewhere” to meet the costs.

Ted Owens, chief executive of Cork Education and Training Board, previously admitted schools and centres “suffered” when the body — formerly County Cork VEC — paid out €553,000 in legal costs and settlements over a four-year period.

Mr Owens recently appeared before the Oireachtas public-spending watchdog to discuss a number of issues arising at County Cork VEC. Public Accounts Committee chairman John McGuinness had described the oversight of the VEC, prior to Mr Owens’ appointment, as like the Wild West.

“If you were paying that towards legal settlements something was suffering. Someone was not getting the money. The money was not paid to you to make legal settlements. What was suffering?” Mr McGuinness asked.

Mr Owens replied: “The budget to schools and centres was suffering.”

Cork ETB has declined to elaborate, when asked by the Irish Examiner, on how schools suffered, instead insisting through a PR firm that salaries and capital expenditure were unaffected.

County Cork VEC spent €553,000 on legal costs and settlements from 2010 to 2013, with the payments arising from disputes with staff.

It paid out €178,000 in 2010, spent €64,500 on settlement and fees in 2011, paid €159,200 in 2012, and incurred costs of €151,300 for similar payments in 2013.

A statement issued on behalf of Cork ETB said County Cork VEC had a budget of about €100m per annum and fees and settlements would represent 0.18% of its budget in 2010, when such costs were at their highest.

“Cork ETB moved to address the issue of high legal costs by introducing new procurement procedures for legal fees. Cork ETB was one of the first ETBs to introduce tendering procedures for legal services in 2014,” Mr Owens said in a statement.

While a spokeswoman for Cork ETB said the body could not outline from which budget the settlement and legal fees were drawn, she insisted salary and capital spending budgets were ringfenced and unaffected by the spending.

Humphrey Deegan, a former chairman of the VEC’s audit committee who highlighted oversight issues the body, said some services must have been impacted.

“They can’t have it both ways, either they were misleading the Public Accounts Committee then when they said that schools were suffering or they are misleading the public now,” he said.

“County Cork VEC would not have that kind of discretionary funding. For that they would need a supplementary budget from the Department of Education.”

Mr Deegan was a member of the VEC and chair of its audit committee until he resigned from the role in September 2011. The VEC had moved to relieve him of his position after he brought oversight concerns to the attention of the Public Accounts Committee.