Recommendation 2

After years of under-investment, the education sector has been struggling to fulfil its statutory duties. Spending per pupil has been consistently lower in Northern Ireland than in England. We are particularly concerned about the future of provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN), with the number of pupils with SEN growing by 60% over the last ten years and this trend only likely to continue. SEN provision makes up a significant amount of EA spending. We recommend, as did our predecessor committee in 2019, that the Northern Ireland Executive take proper account of the increasing numbers of children with SEN in Northern Ireland when allocating budgetary funding to the Department of Education.