Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Integrated Education, HC 373
Tuesday 12 March 2024, Stormont
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 12 March 2024.
Members present: Sir Robert Buckland (Chair); Stephen Farry; Sir Robert Goodwill; Claire Hanna; Carla Lockhart; Bob Stewart.
Questions 63-93
Witnesses
I: Paul Givan MLA, Minister, Northern Ireland Department of Education, Mark Browne, Permanent Secretary, Northern Ireland Department of Education, and Dr Suzanne Kingon, Acting Deputy Secretary of Investment and Infrastructure, Northern Ireland Department of Education.
Witnesses: Paul Givan MLA, Mark Browne and Dr Suzanne Kingon.
Q63 Chair: This is the second session of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee meeting at Stormont. We are extremely grateful to colleagues for their support and, indeed, to our witnesses this morning. We give a warm welcome to Paul Givan, a Member of the Legislative Assembly and Minister of Education. We are grateful to you, Mr Givan, for being with us. We have Dr Mark Browne, the permanent secretary at the Northern Ireland Department of Education, and Dr Suzanne Kingon as well. Welcome to the three of you.
It is a delight to see you here in a functioning Executive. We welcome you warmly to your posts and to your appointment. As a warm-up, Minister, we would love to hear you outline your priorities relating to integrated education and, of course, with specific reference to the initial challenge about the repackaging of Fresh Start funding, an issue that we have all been grappling with.
Paul Givan: Thank you, Mr Chairman, for the invitation to be with the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee today. It is a pleasure. Last time I think Simon Hoare was the Chair and I was First Minister. He has moved on, as have I, but I am delighted to be in the education role and to be with you today.
Obviously, the inquiry is largely around integrated education and where that sits within the Department of Education. First of all, it is a priority area for me. Having a shared society is hugely important when we think of our past and where we are trying to get to. The integrated sector has an important role to play in that, as does the controlled, the maintained and Irish medium. That is a strength of our education system. It is the diversity that we have that is a strength; that is not a weakness. I think that is a good thing, and the integrated sector has an important role in that.
Of course, we have a strategy that relates to integrated education, which is the vibrant and supported network of sustainable integrated schools that provide high-quality integrated education to children and young people. It accounts, as you know, for 27,000 pupils across Northern Ireland, which is roughly 8% of the total pupil population. It is important to me, and I will discharge all my duties as I need to fairly and equitably across all our sectors, including the integrated sector.
Chair, you touched on Fresh Start. That is something that, having taken up post, I recognised very early. The ringfenced funding that had been announced by the UK Government—that £500 million, or what was left of it in uncommitted schemes—was no longer ringfenced and had been rolled into the wider package of the £3.3 billion. We in education have therefore lost that protection and the money that was there. It is no longer available to my Department; I am having to actively bid for that as part of the wider budgetary process. I believe that that puts my Department at a very distinct disadvantage and undermines the UK Government's commitment to supporting integrated and shared education, as a result of the un‑ringfencing of that funding.
I raised that publicly. I entered into correspondence with the Secretary of State, outlining my concern about the approach that had been taken. I have received a response as of four days ago from the Secretary of State, which does not give any comfort to me or to the schools impacted. The response continues to hold the line that that funding is now available for the Executive to decide how they want to spend that money. What did I do as Education Minister? Obviously, there were a number of schools already contractually committed that the Treasury will stand over. The team will keep me right here, but what is contractually committed equates to nearly around £300 million, and the Treasury will honour that. There are then nine or 10 schools.
Dr Kingon: Ten projects.
Paul Givan: There are 10 schools that I have then moved into my major capital schemes in the Department. They will continue to advance alongside other projects in their design stage, and I will take them to the point where they can be shovel ready, to use that term. When finance becomes available, they can then be allocated funding. However, they are there alongside all the other major capital projects in my Department, of which there are more than 50. I can understand why those schools feel aggrieved; I share that grievance that, having been identified through Fresh Start funding, they are now part of my wider capital programme, and I must make bids to the Executive to secure that.
The one outstanding major shared scheme that has not yet been afforded the reassurance that it will advance is the Strule campus, which is hugely significant. That has been a flagship project for the Executive over the past decade, and we are at a very advanced stage in that process. I have been seeking Executive approval to identify the funding for that as part of an Executive funding stream, because my Department does not have the money and could not stand over the magnitude of what we need for that. It needs to be agreed by the Executive, and therefore at the moment Strule is the one project as part of that wider Fresh Start scheme that does not yet have the reassurance that I would like to give it.
Q64 Claire Hanna: When did you find out that that money was not going to be available to you? Was it in your first-day brief, or did you find out during the talks process?
Paul Givan: I was not aware of it during the talks process, so it was whenever I came into office—whenever we were sitting down. I was talking to my officials about our capital schemes and, on the Fresh Start issue, it was highlighted that that there was no longer ringfenced funding for us.
Q65 Claire Hanna: Did you know about it before the Department had briefed the boards of governors in the affected schools?
Paul Givan: Obviously, I became aware of it very early when I took up post. Whenever we communicated the decisions to boards of governors, in terms of the outcome of that, that communication would have come post me as Minister being made aware of the situation regarding those schools.
Q66 Claire Hanna: Did you not think it might warrant a ministerial statement? It was communicated quite furtively going into the weekend. Your predecessor would have used an oral statement to announce fairly aspirational lists of schools to be built. Do you not think that would have been a more appropriate way to communicate it?
Paul Givan: If there had been a way to do an oral statement, that may have been something we could have communicated. I did communicate it to the schools, and we did make them publicly aware that there was an issue for Fresh Start with these capital schemes, and that I was taking action. I wanted to make sure that when schools were made aware of the funding situation, I would also be able to provide them with comfort that I was taking them into my Department and that they would be advanced through the capital projects, which were not being stopped or paused but were continuing to advance. I needed to do work to make sure I could do that, and then we made information available to the schools and the wider public about the actions I was taking. I was also making representations to the Secretary of State. Ultimately, it is the UK Government that has taken this decision.
Q67 Claire Hanna: What discussions have you had with your Executive colleagues about it? When were they aware of the loss of the fund?
Paul Givan: I have raised it at the Executive in the context of seeking agreement to advance the Strule project. That context has also given me the opportunity to update Executive colleagues on the decisions about these projects and the steps I have taken to ensure they can continue to advance, in the wider context of the capital resources that my Department needs to develop them. I was the first Minister who made a statement in the Assembly. I outlined in detail the capital resources and my ambition to deliver on the capital projects. I have pursued that in discussions with Executive colleagues.
Claire, you and others rightly raise with me regularly the development opportunities. Carla has done that for Portadown in Upper Bann. I can give you a very lengthy list. I have been going back to say, “I am making a capital bid. I want these projects to advance.” I can advance these projects only subject to getting the necessary funding from the Executive, and I would welcome the support of Members of Parliament in that so we can prioritise education and to allow me to deliver these projects. That includes for the integrated sector.
Q68 Claire Hanna: I have written to you, or presumably to your officials when there was no Minister. You will know that Millennium and Forge are in my constituency. Were your Executive colleagues aware of it before it went out to that effect in schools? What discussions have you had with the Finance Minister? Given that the funding is reallocated, not removed, have you discussed bringing it back in and ringfencing it for these purposes?
Paul Givan: I have raised it with the Finance Minister and all of my Executive colleagues, in terms of the Executive taking a decision on the Fresh Start funding. I have provided assurances to those integrated schools and, with the exception of Strule, the other shared campus projects. Brookeborough is affected, but they will develop as part of my Departmental process.
Q69 Claire Hanna: And you have asked the Finance Minister for the resource to do that?
Paul Givan: I have had an Executive paper. I am updating it and will be resubmitting it in respect of Strule—
Q70 Claire Hanna: Strule, but not these other cancelled projects?
Paul Givan: They form part of my wider budget bid. I have put forward a capital bid to the Department of Finance as part of their budgetary process. When that funding becomes available, I will be able to advance schools. Not all the school projects, whether they are the integrated ones—Millennium is at a very advanced stage—
Q71 Claire Hanna: It is very advanced. Enabling works have already been done, and they are having a material effect on the children who are currently in the school.
Paul Givan: It is. Not all of them are at that stage. Other schools are going to take a number of years before they get to the stage where we can enter into capital spend on them. It is not the case that I am saying to the Finance Minister, “I need x amount of money to deliver these 10 integrated and shared schools in the next financial year,” because they are not at that stage. Millennium is at a very advanced stage. I believe it is a project that the Treasury could have signed off before devolution was restored.
Q72 Claire Hanna: And therefore it could be one that you could work on with the Finance Minister to ensure that, particularly given its advanced stage, it can be protected. Are you prioritising it at the same level as projects like Strule?
Paul Givan: If I can just touch on Millennium, it is at a very advanced stage. There are some other schools at a very advanced stage—
Q73 Claire Hanna: We are going to lose out. There is a financial loss, because there are works that have been done that are wasted if this does not get advanced now. Is that a priority for you?
Paul Givan: It is, in the sense that it is at a very advanced stage. On Strule, we have already spent £43 million. We have a special school already constructed and operating. A huge amount of work has taken place on that site, so there would be lost public expenditure if we do not proceed, but a decision needs to be taken, given the scale of the project down at Strule. Millennium is at an advanced stage. Where I get the appropriate funding, I will be able to allocate it to schools, but the same goes for Glenwood Primary School in the Shankill, which is third-world country status in terms of the fabric of the building. When I get the finance available, I will look at what the need is and where the prioritisation on spend is, and we will allocate that.
But that is to develop new school projects. There is a wider context for my Department in terms of the finance that we need. There are inescapable funding pressures of an £80 million capital spend before I can move into new school builds. Special educational needs provision has exponentially been rising, and we have not received any additional funding. People will come and rightly ask, “What are you doing to make provision for children with special needs in mainstream and specialist schools?”—which we need to enhance. They are making a very prioritised call on the funding that is available within the Department of Education.
Before I can get to allocating funding to Millennium or other schools, I need to be securing, at a minimum, approximately around £100 million—and then we need significantly more funding. That is whenever I will be in a position to allocate funding to allow these projects to go forward. I am not going to look at one particular school and say, “You attract specialised priority status.” All of them will be treated fairly and equitably, subject to funding being made available.
Claire Hanna: You will find no argument here; as a Committee, we have been exploring SEN in the absence of an Assembly, and we are really glad that you are now in post to try to take some of those findings forward. There will obviously be different capital and resource allocations, but I know colleagues will pick up on those. Thank you.
Q74 Carla Lockhart: I have a small point that I think is important to make so that Members are absolutely clear. Your Department would have been informed by the Department of Finance, which would have subsequently been informed by the NIO and His Majesty’s Treasury. I would not want there to be any ambiguity leaving this meeting today that this was on the shoulders of the Minister of Education. Am I correct in that assessment of the process?
Paul Givan: Let me invite Mark or Suzanne to comment on the technical process of when we became informed.
Mark Browne: The general process was that, as part of the discussions around the package, obviously the Department of Finance would have been engaging with the NIO. The NIO were leading on that. It took quite considerable time to get clarity over exactly what was in the package and what the various conditions were around elements of that package. It would have been quite soon before the Executive came into operation before there was any clarity on the funds that had actually been brought into the £3.3 billion, and then precisely what the arrangements were.
But you are quite right; this was a decision made by the Secretary of State on the advice of the NIO. The Department of Finance would have been engaging with the NIO about those arrangements, and then would have advised the Department of Education whenever the Executive was reformed. That process that you describe is correct.
Carla Lockhart: I think that is important. Maybe as a recommendation, if appropriate, we could write to the Secretary of State on this issue, given the chain of events.
Q75 Chair: We will renew that correspondence, which has been ongoing. Can I come back to some definitional issues before I come to Robert Goodwill? Obviously, there are schools in the integrated sector that are selecting children using post-primary transfer tests, but in the 2022 Act, the definition of integrated education refers to “educating together…those of different abilities”. There is a socioeconomic argument about the underlying issues that can affect academic selection. How does that statutory definition fit with the fact that PPT tests are used in order to select?
Paul Givan: I will bring Mark in on the definition, but on the wider point around the academic selection within the integrated sector, I think there are three post-primary integrated schools that use academic selection or the SEAG test that we had this year. But even with that, I think it equates to around 35% of their pupil profile that they will admit on the basis of academic selection, with 65% not being admitted through academic selection. So there is a mix of areas, whether it is religious intake, or indeed from socioeconomic and academic backgrounds, but how that interplays with the actual definition—
Mark Browne: I think the integrated sector have taken the view for some time that they were all-ability schools. Part of the definition put in the 2022 Act talked specifically about those of different abilities. The view of the sector was that in order to ensure they did get that full spread of abilities they needed to make sure they had people who were at the upper end of the academic spectrum as well as those who would be at different places. Therefore, having a grammar stream that was selective would ensure they got that particular spread. Not all the schools in the integrated sector took that view, but that was the view of some particular boards of governors in the sector.
Chair: Yes, because not all schools stream. Some of them have mixed-ability classes, don’t they?
Mark Browne: They don’t all stream.
Q76 Sir Robert Goodwill: Turning to the nuts and bolts of integrated education, the 2022 Act stated that there must be “reasonable numbers” of Roman Catholics and Protestants. How does the Department define the term “reasonable numbers”?
Paul Givan: When it comes to reasonable numbers, it is not that we have a clear definition of what a reasonable number relates to. We do not take a one-size-fits-all approach to that. Historically, you would have looked at reasonable numbers around intakes in year 1 and year 8 being around 30% of a minority community, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach as to what we regard as reasonable numbers whenever it comes to religious intake.
Q77 Sir Robert Goodwill: Yesterday when we were at the excellent Hazelwood Integrated College, they told us they were working to a 40:40:20 model and that their admission policy was to maintain that proportion. In some communities, that may not reflect the actual make-up of the town. Do you think that schools should look at coming to a judgment based on what the breakdown of a community is, rather than sticking to more inflexible figures?
Paul Givan: I don’t think 40:40:20 is a Department definition.
Mark Browne: The view about the 40:40:20 comes from the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education’s statement of principles. This was something that they would aspire to for their schools and would seek to achieve in their admissions criteria. Clearly in some areas, as you say, the schools obviously draw on the population in the community, and they are going to reflect that. They will still have that aspiration for 40:40:20, but it is an aspiration—it is not something that is a hard line.
Our view—and the important thing here—is that a school does reflect its community, that it draws on, and is open to, all those who wish to attend the school, provided they meet the admissions criteria. Additionally, it is important that within the school the curriculum delivered encourages young people to get to know each other and understand people from different backgrounds, and that it promotes reconciliation.
Paul Givan: There is a rising number of parents whose children are not identifying as either Protestant or Catholic. They are there as non-denominational, and that is an increasing trend we are seeing. Therefore, that rigid approach of 40:40:20 is not a departmental figure for what is reasonable.
Within the integrated sector, it is roughly 34% Protestant, 35% Catholic and 31% other; however, there are five integrated schools that have less than 10% of a minority community within their populations. They are integrated in the sense that they are called integrated. I always say that it is what happens in the classroom that will indicate how integrated a school is. A name on a school does not necessarily mean that it is integrated.
When we look at the controlled sector, the maintained, the integrated and Irish-medium schools, we have the same curriculum, which has to be taught in every school. You have a common funding formula that is the same in schools. The ethos and what children, pupils, are being taught in these schools are very much in keeping with respecting diversity, inclusion and having a shared society. These things are universally applicable, irrespective of the name attributed to a particular type of school.
Q78 Sir Robert Goodwill: Obviously, society is becoming more secular. Might it be worth considering using the affiliation used here in the Assembly—namely, Unionist, nationalist or other? Might that be an easier way for people to identify, and to measure their tradition?
Paul Givan: I sat on the board of governors for three schools: two primary schools and one post-primary. Of the two primary schools, one had 700 children and the other had 400. The post-primary had over 1,000 in it. This was in the controlled sector. Not once did I ever look at a child and think, “Are you Protestant, Catholic or other? Are you Unionist, nationalist, republican?”, and nor did any other governor or any teacher. We as a Department have a responsibility to say to schools, “Here is the standardised curriculum that is applicable everywhere. Here is what we are expecting in schools.” I don’t think we should be viewing children through a particular lens and saying, “You go to a particular type of school with this name on it, and that has some sort of affiliation with your community identity.” If we are really going to move on in Northern Ireland, I don’t think we should be looking at children through that lens and trying to attribute to them an identity based on a name, which is often, I have to say, misplaced.
A controlled primary school whose board of governors I sat on, Pond Park, is reflective of its local community and has been changing as, increasingly, housing developments have been built around it. I never asked, “What is the enrolment for our P1 and P2 intake?”, but I can guarantee you that that is coming from a very mixed religious and political background, because what influences parents’ decisions, certainly at Pond Park, is that it received an “outstanding” evaluation from the inspectorate; it delivers high-quality education. That is the first and most important thing that I find parents look to in choosing the type of school that their children are going to go to. They look to the delivery of that academic excellence, other provisions, local ties and travel. It may be an integrated school right beside you that delivers all those things; it may be a maintained school; it may be a controlled school. Those are the influences that I think come to bear, first and foremost, in choosing a school.
Q79 Sir Robert Goodwill: That certainly came through loud and clear in what we heard at Queen’s University yesterday. That was about being a good school, as opposed to a school with a particular label on it. If we look at some of the data on local government districts with integrated enrolments above the Northern Ireland average, we see that most of those seem to be in the east of Northern Ireland. Is there a reason for that?
Paul Givan: Well, it’s where the densest population is—that is stating the obvious. Claire Hanna represents south Belfast, and I think the figure—
Claire Hanna: “Long may that continue,” says you! [Laughter.]
Paul Givan: I think the figure there is around 2,500 pupils per square mile or so. You go to Fermanagh and West Tyrone and it is around 50. So inevitably you will have a much greater choice of type of school in those larger, urban populations. I don’t think the desire for an integrated school is necessarily unique to the east, but just through the make-up of a more rural population and the schools that are available, you maybe have less opportunity in some areas to go down the transformation—
Q80 Sir Robert Goodwill: Maybe more surplus capacity.
Paul Givan: Well, you do have a declining pupil population now coming through schools. That is an issue, and certainly west of the Bann as well. It’s an issue in all schools. We have oversubscribed integrated schools and we have integrated schools that are undersubscribed, but that is reflective of every sector. I don’t think it’s unique in terms of the question, “Why in the east of the Province are there more integrated schools?” Historically, there are 33 controlled integrated schools. There has only ever been one maintained school that has transformed into an integrated school, so the most significant transformation of schools has come from the controlled sector. But that is still controlled integrated schools and that has predominantly been in the east of the Province.
Mark Browne: It is maybe worth mentioning that many of the schools in the movement grew up out of what were historically called integrated education trusts. Many of those would have been concentrated in the east of the Province, so there has always historically been that focus there. Indeed, the first school, Lagan College, was obviously in the east of the Province. So there is an historical element to that, which is probably linked into the population density and the particular support that there is for integrated education.
Sir Robert Goodwill: Okay. We will not read too much into the geographical spread.
Q81 Claire Hanna: I realised I never said good morning, so maidin mhaith and maith thú for your engagement last week. That was very good to see.
In the Department’s written evidence it said that it was proposing to embark on a specific study with NICIE about the impacts of integration for society. What stage is the planning for that at?
Mark Browne: We are looking at what the possibilities are around looking at that impact. It is not an easy thing to assess, and longitudinal studies are historically extremely expensive and you have a lot of attrition in them. It is not without its practical problems. Certainly, we want to get a better understanding of what the impact of integrated education is. We will be discussing with NICIE and others just to see what form and shape that research should take, and then we want to see how best to commission that. That is under consideration at the minute.
Q82 Claire Hanna: You have rightly said, and as Robert indicated, there are obviously lots of factors that parents are considering when they are choosing a school. We discussed with Queen’s yesterday different ways that you can capture the factors that are influencing people, both to help us better demonstrate the real demand and interest, and to shoot the fox of those who say that people do not want to integrate if they are not choosing integration and all the other factors. One of the suggestions was to potentially capture that in the portal when parents are making school selections, so they can say, “Well, these are the schools I have chosen and the factors.” As we know, people, for example, do not want to waste their first preference or they are going on proximity or whatever. Is capturing that information something you might consider doing in real time, right at the point of decision?
Paul Givan: You are right to highlight it, Claire, in terms of where parents decide to place their preference will be influenced by a whole host of reasons. Sometimes, it is about securing a bus pass. In making your first choice, if you have tried to get to a nearer school and have ended up going to the school that you really wanted to go to, you have to go through this process just to secure a bus pass. That is a whole different conversation to get into.
But where parents indicate their preference will be influenced by a whole range of issues, and I think there will be that societal inclination. If you asked me, “Would you like your child to have an integrated setting and be integrated within society?” I will say yes. My schools have engaged extensively in very deliberate shared education programmes, which I think are really important for us to do. Is there more that we can do to capture that data? Suzanne, is that something that we are doing?
Dr Kingon: Absolutely. We are looking with the Education Authority to see how we can make use of the admissions portal to try to capture why parents are making the decisions they are making. I think the ARK research and other pieces—I know you were engaging with them yesterday—highlight that you cannot just use preference as a proxy for why. A first preference for integrated has not necessarily been made on the basis of a preference for that sector. It may be a preference for convenience or a high-quality school and it is really important that we capture that. The portal is a really good way of doing that and we are looking to try to secure that.
More broadly, we know we need to get quantitative data. But again, the ARK research highlighted the need for us to get some more qualitative data to really probe the variety of reasons that influence school choice when we are looking to develop the definition of demand and aim to meet that demand.
Q83 Claire Hanna: Yes, and vice versa as well, by the way. People might choose a setting that is not integrated, although that is what they want but the practicalities do not work for them. At the moment, there is the vibes-based stuff—people are responding and saying, “This is what I want”—but then something is happening whenever people are making their choice. Is that something the Department is committed to, and it’s just about operationalising it with the EA? Am I picking that up correctly?
Dr Kingon: It is something we would like to do. We are looking into the practicalities with the Education Authority. We want to make sure we get the timing right—the post-primary admissions process is quite a pressurised time for parents. We just want to make sure we get the timing right. We might ask the question slightly after they have submitted, once they have had time to reflect on their decisions, rather than in the heat of making them. So we are looking at the timing and how we can get it right. But it is certainly a great opportunity to get more data, which is what we want, to inform our decision making going forward.
Claire Hanna: As someone who has filled in one of those portals at five to noon on the deadline day, I understand some of that rationale. Thank you very much.
Q84 Stephen Farry: Good morning, Minister and Mark and Suzanne. I want to focus a bit more on the 2022 Act and how it is being delivered by the Department. What is your general approach to the legislation? How do you approach your revised duties towards the sector in terms of promoting and supporting?
Paul Givan: I take the duties placed upon me as a Minister for the integrated sector very seriously. That is something I will discharge as Minister. There are duties on me when it comes to the Irish medium. There are duties on me when it comes to shared education and the need to promote, facilitate and support. We take all of the duties that are on the Department of Education very seriously when it comes to how we support every sector. The Act that was passed is something we will be taking forward based on the duties placed on us.
Q85 Stephen Farry: Is it true that only £50,000 has been allocated for implementation of the Act in the Department’s budget?
Paul Givan: Suzanne, do you want to pick up on that?
Dr Kingon: Yes, £50,000 was initially allocated as additional funding. We have bid to the Department of Finance for significant additional funding to take forward and support implementation of the Act over the next financial year. Those bids are in with the Department of Finance, and we are waiting to see how they go.
Q86 Stephen Farry: In terms of scaling up, what sort of quantum are you talking about?
Dr Kingon: We have submitted bids this year for about £170,000 to support the implementation of the Act. That is within a broader context of the ongoing support that we provide for NICIE, which totals around £650,000 a year. The Department also provides support for transforming schools. So it is within a wider context.
Q87 Stephen Farry: In terms of Executive reallocation, £170,000 is probably a fairly small amount. I suppose if I was Finance Minister, I would be asking, “Shouldn’t the Department be finding that from within its own budget, given that there is a legal duty to scale up?” If that is what is required, in your estimation, to deliver the Act, that is in effect what the Department should be allocating.
Paul Givan: Too often, the Department of Finance says, “Find this within your budget.” If people are serious about prioritising, then resource needs to follow, whether that is in legal obligations around integrated education or all the other legal obligations that fall to this Department, particularly on special education. We have not got the support that we need. So I would push back, Stephen, and say to you: do not allow the Department of Finance to get off the hook and say, “Just tell the Department of Education, ‘Deliver this within your budget.’” We do not have a good budget.
Q88 Stephen Farry: I appreciate that everyone is in a complete mess, but it should be at both ends. If Finance does not pony up, the Department none the less has the duty to deliver in that respect.
To what extent are you capable of putting in place a strategic approach to greater facilitation of integrated education? I am very conscious that progress to date has been piecemeal and dependent on either schools or, in some cases, groups of parents—over the heads of schools—initiating the transformation process. But there does not seem to be a proper strategic approach or proper engagement with area planning in terms of how that can be taken forward. Is there any revised thinking in the Department as to how this can be done better, albeit in the context of the revised legislation?
Paul Givan: When it comes to area planning, could it be better delivered? Yes, there could be better area planning right across the board, and I will be engaging on that with the Education Authority. That includes the provision of placements in special educational settings, as well as looking at the desire for integrated schools. Our Department’s responsibility—and it enables this through all the existing legislation—is to facilitate the various sectors that we have. Where there is demand and a desire to do that, this Department seeks to support and facilitate it.
Where there is a desire for integrated education, we will support schools. Where there is a desire to have shared educational campuses—we just opened one in Limavady—again, we will support that. But this is led from the community—from the desire of parents who want to take forward a particular type of approach that reflects their community. If that is a shared campus, with controlled and maintained, that is something that we should support. If it is the integrated education sector, we should support that.
Q89 Stephen Farry: Your answer, Minister, suggests in effect a bottom-up approach, but it does not really indicate that there is a top-down approach from the Department that meets the parents halfway and looks for opportunities for integration. You will be conscious, for example, that the Integrated Education Fund has done a mapping exercise of vulnerable primary schools. You sometimes have the scenario that there are two vulnerable schools in a community, and, as you know, there is not a holistic approach to area planning. Even that is sectorised between the controlled and the maintained sectors. There does not seem to be anyone who is bringing this together in a holistic way. That may well be your opportunity. You mentioned limited budget resources. If you are looking for efficiencies, as well as better educational outcomes, surely there is an opportunity for the Department to lead on how that is driven forward.
Paul Givan: That is a fair point, particularly in rural settings, where you can see two small schools that on their own are struggling to meet the threshold for what is a sustainable school according to our policies. Could they collaborate and come together, whether or not that is in an integrated setting? Provision exists for the joint management of schools where a controlled and a maintained operate and, if they fail, they do not want to become officially integrated. They could come together and operate under that type of framework. That is something that I have been discussing with different sectors, and I have been trying to encourage them to look at that.
We need the various managing authorities to look at their communities and say, “What can we do to try to sustain education provision, which is central to the community?” There are various options that exist for that to happen, but they need to take the initiative as well. I need to make sure that we as a Department can enable that. When people want to come forward and take that approach, I will enable that. There is certainly support for that to happen, but it does need to be community led, Stephen. I would push back on the comment that somehow a top-down approach is better than a bottom-up one. If you want to see real integration and a real shared society, we need to enable that, but it has to be community led.
That is why people are maybe sometimes slightly frustrated: the process of transformation to become a controlled integrated school takes time. But that is because we need to make sure that a school can walk through this process, identify what it needs to do to be properly and formally integrated, and make sure that the community always comes with you. Whenever you ballot in a school and there is a majority that decides to become integrated, there may also be a significant minority that has said, “We do not want to do that.” The school still needs to bring people with it. You need to make sure that you get wider buy-in, and that takes time. You cannot just force a particular type of approach on a school setting or within a community. I often find that you get resistance rather than buy-in to that approach.
Q90 Stephen Farry: Surely there has to be a balance between top-down and bottom-up, rather than exclusively one or the other. I appreciate that colleagues need to come in as well for time to talk about transformation in more detail, but just for the record, only one maintained school has transformed, but development proposals have been turned down, notably at St Anne’s in Donaghadee in my constituency, which happened under Dr Browne’s tenure during the interim. I do not want to litigate that, but I say that just for the record, to make sure that we recognise that there have been other efforts in the maintained sector that have not necessarily come to fruition in that regard.
Mark Browne: Can I just make a quick comment on that? Without getting into the detail of St Anne’s, I did indeed take the decision and there was a judicial review. Justice Scoffield’s judgment made it quite clear that “the Department was plainly aware of the new duty to support the development of integrated education. There is no evidence that it failed to apply that duty or misconstrued it.” The judicial judgment absolutely supported the basis on which the decision was taken and the fact that we had given appropriate regard to our duty around all of this, Stephen. I know it is always difficult for the community when that happens, but that decision was taken on the right basis.
Q91 Stephen Farry: I was just making the point that, in the maintained sector, there have been wider efforts to seek transformation and, for various reasons, they have not always—
Paul Givan: I said earlier that the maintained sector will say to me, when I go into schools, “We are a Catholic school with a Catholic ethos, but everyone’s welcome in our school.” That is the same in the controlled sector, which is wrongly perceived as Protestant, and it is not. We need to try to educate the wider public around the various different sectors that make up the diversity of our society, which is a good thing. That plurality of option is a good thing. Our legislation is very firmly based on parental choice and us facilitating parental choice, but we need to do that on a sustainable footing. If a school, in an effort to avoid closure, goes down a particular route—whether it is seeking a shared-type arrangement or transforming to a different type of sector—and it is not sustainable, that is not a credible way to try to change the type of school structure.
Our evidence has shown that there are now 27,000 pupils in the integrated sector. Any temporary variations for increasing capacity are being granted; I am not aware if, only in very exceptional circumstances, that has not been the case. Where we make provision to enhance capacity, the Department has been doing that during the past number of years, and that will continue to be the case. Where there is a need, where there is demand, where it is sustainable and where it is supported, our Department is here to enable and support that.
Q92 Carla Lockhart: I know that we are tight for time, so I want to make two quick comments on Fresh Start and the importance of working with those schools that are obviously disappointed. Some of my colleagues have been bending my ear about the likes of Slemish in North Antrim, who are very disappointed in relation to their not getting on to the list. I encourage you to continue to press for that and I believe that, as a Committee, we need to do exactly the same.
I also want to put on the record my thanks to the integrated sector in my own constituency. Portadown Integrated Primary School is certainly making great advances and I know that New-Bridge Integrated is certainly advancing as well—both schools that are doing exceptionally well.
I want to tease out your commitment to parental choice and to ensuring that other sectors are not left behind as a result of the legislative duty on you. I know that there is much frustration. It does nothing within sectors that, whenever one fails, it is maybe highlighted as not being integrated when it is—particularly in the controlled sector. I want to tease out your commitment to ensuring that the controlled sector, the maintained sector and the integrated sector are all advancing together, and that parental choice is right at the very heart of it. In my constituency, there are controlled sector schools that are as integrated as an integrated school. It goes back to the banner above the door: it is not about the banner above the door; it is about the school and its direction of travel.
Will you comment on your commitment to parental choice and to ensuring that all our sectors are looked after?
Paul Givan: I think the point you make about parental choice is hugely important, Carla. We do not have one-size-fits-all in terms of education in Northern Ireland. In fact, I think that plurality of choice has been a strength. First and foremost, any parent will always want to do what is best for their child. That has to be reflected in the public services that we provide. In education, it has been a cornerstone of Northern Ireland over the years that we curate and support parental choice. There are historical and geographical reasons why some schools have ended up as very much single identity-type schools, but we all know from our constituencies that the work has been going on to engage in shared educational opportunities with controlled and maintained schools, and the integrated sector is part of it too, in order to learn from their experiences and the delivery of curriculum using different campuses. That is a good thing.
To be clear, the controlled sector includes controlled integrated and controlled Irish medium, and yet there is a perception that it is somehow exclusive. That is far from the case. We know that both in terms of the religious intake into a lot of schools and in terms of the socioeconomic background. In promoting one sector, we always need to make sure that we are not somehow denigrating other sectors in the pursuit of trying to say, “We want more of this type of school because we’re good and they’re bad.” That is not the case. We have excellent schools in every sector in Northern Ireland, and the plurality of choice is an important principle. We devolve a lot of autonomy down to schools’ boards of governors, and they can then develop how they want to deliver their curriculum and how they engage within their communities and link with different schools. We empower and encourage them to do that. That is where you can have a community, grassroots-led initiative, but one that is supported by the Department to try to facilitate that. I think that diversity of choice is vitally important.
Q93 Carla Lockhart: Very quickly, in relation to the importance of boards of governors and of the ethos in schools, there has been a push, particularly when the Assembly was not sitting, around RSE and introducing things that maybe would not sit naturally with the ethos of schools. Is it your intention to ensure that schools do and can hold on to their ethos, and that boards of governors will continue to have autonomy on issues like that? I think that is important on issues like RSE.
Paul Givan: It is important to look at the regulations passed from Westminster and some of the wider commentary associated with that, which went beyond what was actually in the regulations. That is an area that we have looked at. I have now provided detailed statements in response to questions on this issue.
When it comes to RSE, this is something that has been taught for many years. It did not just arrive in school when the Secretary of State took on the power and passed the regulations. It has been there, and it sits across various different subjects. You don’t go into a classroom and say, “This is the subject of RSE”; it will sit in various different subject matters.
On the two areas that were specifically legislated on, when it comes to abortion and prevention of pregnancies, they are to be taught in a factual way: “What is an abortion?” We all know that it happens, and we will have our own views on the rights and wrongs of that, but in terms of what has to be taken forward in schools, it is: “This is the factual as to what happens.” That is also the case in relation to pregnancy matters.
Importantly, that can be discussed within the ethical framework and the ethos of the school, because, in every classroom, you will outline a particular issue, and then students and young people will say—and they said this to the Department as part of the consultation process—“We want to be able to discuss this.” That can be discussed, subject to the policies set up by the boards of governors, who continue to be autonomous in this area, and they can have that discussion in line with the school’s ethos.
That allows teachers and the principal, when it comes to the development of these programmes, to still decide. If they want to bring in outside organisations to deliver it, they can do that. Where a teacher wants to have that discussion within a particular ethical framework and ethos that represents the school, they are able to do that. I think that is important.
Carla Lockhart: And there is the parental choice around removing your child if you want to. Chair, thank you; I know that I have pushed the boundaries on that topic.
Chair: Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Dr Browne and Dr Kingon, for being here. We have a tight schedule, as I know you do, so we will let you go with our thanks.