Debate contribution: Transforming Capital Investment: Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Givan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 30 April 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Ministerial Statements
- Heading
- Transforming Capital Investment: Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4487000
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The Member is right to raise that issue. It has been raised with me when I have visited schools. At Carr Primary School in my constituency, the principal indicated that the school had expressed an interest in provision but the EA did not follow that through; indeed, it was indicated that it may not have been a suitable school because of the wider enrolment issue. I looked at that issue, and, in my view, it is a suitable school. That is one of the reasons why my Department — not the EA — engaged directly with schools and sought expressions of interest; I had my permanent secretary reach out to do that. We are carrying out a survey for the reasons that the Member has just articulated: too many schools said that they wanted to make that provision but that they did not get the support that they needed from the Education Authority.
The Member previously raised Sperrinview and the facilities that are needed. Today's announcement of a new build for Sperrinview opens up the mechanism, or gateway, for that process to commence. That will be very much welcomed in the wider mid-Ulster community. When it comes to the budget, we need additional funding over the next 10 years in a sustained way. I was pleased that the Executive were able to provide additional resource to my Department for capital expenditure. I had raised it with the Finance Minister. I would have liked more, but I am glad that I got over £60 million. I fought hard, based on all my engagement and the evidence that some of our most vulnerable children need that support, and that is why Education received an uplift. I can spend so much more, and I intend to get these projects to the point at which they are ready to go into construction so that, when I next go to the Executive to seek funding, I will do so on the basis of being able to say, "These are schools that can be built when the resource is made available to us". Over the next 10 years, the scale of that investment will be in the hundreds of millions. It will be developed strategically, through a planned process, and, obviously, it will be critical investment to create the right kind of school estate for special education.
The survey is being carried out based on the physical need of the school. Some schools may have a classroom that can be repurposed, and others may require a classroom unit or a modular unit to be put on. My Department and the EA are assessing the 200 schools that have come forward, and we are doing that because we need to make sure that it is the right placement, not just because we cannot have a child not going to school. We have to make sure that children go to school, but it needs to be the right school. We should not be in a place where we are applying so much pressure to a school and saying, "You must take". It has to be right, and the school has to be supported. What I am doing today, and what we have been doing, is making sure that school principals and leadership teams feel supported, because, instinctively, our school principals and boards of governors want to accommodate all children in their local community, but they need to make sure that they have the right support from government and the Education Authority to have the confidence to do that.
I think that the Member is referring to what we regard as supernumerary when it comes to the planning. We have been taking an approach that you cannot plan new builds and school enhancement programmes without including children with statements of special educational need and meeting that need. When carrying out future designs and builds, we need to make sure that we are building new schools on the basis that they will be able to accommodate all children, and the issue of how you build the supernumerary factor into it needs to be addressed. There is no point building new schools that are not able to meet the needs of the local community, particularly children with special educational needs.
I thank the Member for the question. He will have me in his constituency, I think, tomorrow for school visits, and Clifton is another school that he has raised with me. I thank him for his advocacy on that. It is one of the schools in the school enhancement programme, and we seek to move that forward at pace. There is a clear challenge in the wider education estate. There is a 15-year backlog in planned maintenance, and we have a real problem in how we address that. There is outdated technology infrastructure in schools, and investment of around £250 million is required to update that infrastructure, so the challenges are hugely significant. I recognise that there are huge challenges for the Executive, but we still have resources and funding. It is for Ministers to get on with the job and do the best that they can with the funding envelope that they have. I am a Minister who is rolling up my sleeves, getting on with that difficult job and trying to find solutions.
884 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.92).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.92 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.95 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.04 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.