1st Special Report - Education funding in Northern Ireland: Government Response to the Committee’s Ninth Report of Session 2017–19

This is the government's response, published 21 October 2019.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Secretary of State sets out that Northern Ireland education funding and most of the Committee's requested actions are devolved matters, with the Northern Ireland Office saying it has no power to direct spending or make the relevant regulations.

• On regulations under the 2016 SEN Act and on the Children's Strategy, the Secretary of State says he "has no power to make these regulations or to lay them before Parliament" and cannot adopt the strategy in place of the Executive.
• On multi-year budgets, the response states the upcoming spending round "will be for a period of one year", with multi-year allocations "a matter for an incoming NI Executive to consider".
• On carry-over of underspends, the 2019-20 budget includes flexibility to switch £130m capital to resource and to carry forward up to £85m resource and £8m capital from 2018-19.
• The Department of Education says it will issue a call for major capital projects in September 2019, and the Department of Education says it "accepts this recommendation in part" on a staff health and wellbeing strategy, building on work by the Education Authority.

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