Analysis in progress: 97,637 of 97,960 records assessed (99.7%). Totals and rankings will change until it finishes. Progress details
Mr Paul Givan: Assembly records
All of Mr Paul Givan’s imported questions, contributions and motions in this mandate, newest first, including those assessed as not flagged, uncertain or not yet analysed.
Back in the day, when I was a young person — maybe I am now just young at heart, although the politically correct Civil Service guide says that you should not say those sorts of things — I actively campaigned against releasing prisoners. I wanted them to be kept in prison. The Member's party campaigned to release mass…
There have been occasions on which it has been recommended that I not meet an individual or group, and I have met them, so that is not the only occasion on which that has occurred.
Transitions post 19 for young people with statements of special educational needs have been a key aspect of the end-to-end review of special educational needs. I am aware that my officials recently met the Member and a number of parents at Rossmar School to discuss the matter. My officials are working closely with…
That is about how the curriculum is delivered. The preventative curriculum in particular is kept under review, and, as issues emerge, we need to make sure that we have the right support for it. The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) has been good at providing material when schools have…
The Education and Training Inspectorate report uses the term "preventative curriculum" to encompass safeguarding practices and the taught elements of the curriculum, such as personal development, mutual understanding and relationships and sexuality education (RSE). The ETI report found that pupil safety and…
There has been an impact from the cap, and changes have happened. It has had an impact on some of the funding that we have been receiving, but we are assessing what the threshold should be. The cap that exists has affected a small number of people. The overwhelming majority of people have not been impacted by the cap…
A number of bodies that I have met can provide support. There is the NI Childminding Association with Patricia Lewsley. That organisation provides support to childminders that they can turn to. As part of the review and the strategy that we want to take forward, I am happy to look at the idea of a professional body.…
The challenges facing the early learning and childcare workforce, including recruitment, retention, qualifications and pay, are well recognised and are being considered as part of the development of the Executive's early learning and childcare strategy. However, aware of the immediate pressures faced by the sector, I…
I assure the Member that we have already secured the funding to take forward the first tranche of the standardisation programme within the early learning and childcare funding pot. Twenty-five million pounds was allocated to that, and that is allowing us to identify at least 100 settings that, by 1 September next…
The Executive and I, as Minister, wanted to make sure that action was taken, not just words. A strategy is a document that outlines what you want to do. I wanted to do something, and the Executive wanted to do something, hence the focus has been on standing up the childcare subsidy scheme as well as all of the other…
Obviously, there has been an impact as a result of the change that has been made through the National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage. Many businesses are raising the issue of how they will meet the additional expenditure that is now required. As we review the outworkings of all of that, we will seek to…
Childcare providers are in a private marketplace. How would that be regulated? How would you do it? I am picking up something that another Member asked about how you would provide a scheme to support the pay and the terms and conditions of the people involved in after-school clubs and so on. One of the proposals in…
The Member is right to raise the issue of helping to support school-age children. I alluded to that in the original response. The reason we focused on preschool-age children is that that is typically the period when families face the highest childcare costs. It is in that period that mothers are transitioning back to…
When I took up post in February, I realised that urgent action was needed to make childcare more affordable. I secured an additional £25 million of Executive funding in May to implement a package of measures in this financial year that are already making a real difference to thousands of children and families across…
I made a clear intervention to ensure that we had a new chief executive in the Education Authority. That intervention was severely criticised by the leader of the SDLP. I very much want the Education Authority to be responsive and to address its failings, but, when I make those changes, I appeal to Members to support…
Obviously, the Department engages with the EA on the various recommendations in the landscape review. There were 13 recommendations highlighted relating to improvements required to support organisational effectiveness, governance, accountability and relationships. The report indicated that, whilst matters have…
Let me quote from the independent review so that it is not me saying it. A number of things have been stated in that report: "The managing authority role has always been a challenge because the EA also provides a wide range of services to all other schools. This results in complicated systems for school management,…
The independent review of education identified a number of key areas that relate to the managing authority role. I will highlight one of them, which is that the level of support for controlled schools was "suboptimal". That is why I have created a task force to address that issue. We need to make sure that, where…
I accept that there is a need to review and improve service delivery in education. To that end, education services will be reformed through the outworkings of the end-to-end reviews of special educational needs (SEN) and school improvement, which focus on the development of high-quality, cost-effective services. The…
The Member rightly highlights and namechecks those schools: there is no doubt that they are good schools. As I indicated, area planning is not a function of the Department of Education; it is one for the managing authorities to take forward in how they plan their school estate. There are seven such schools in South…
Operational responsibility for the planning of education provision lies with the two statutory planning authorities: the Education Authority and the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS). They conduct area-planning activity in consultation and collaboration with a number of sectoral bodies. 'Planning for…
The Member has raised that issue on a number of occasions with me, as have other Members. Whilst I have every sympathy with the positions that are being expressed, the outworkings of how the payment impacts on universal credit is not a matter for me or my Department. It also ties in with issues around Treasury and the…
The Member is absolutely right about valuing our support staff. That is why I engaged proactively with the trade unions to get a resolution to the issue around the pay and grading review, which had gone on for some time. Primarily, it was about recruitment and retention in the workforce, but the outworkings of that…