Member's statement: Kilbride Central Primary School: School Enhancement Programme
Member's statement by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on .
- MLA
- Dr Steve Aiken OBE
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 10 March 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Kilbride Central Primary School: School Enhancement Programme
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4840809
Read the official Assembly record
Text
As a declaration of interest, I say that I am the vice chair of the board of governors at Kilbride Central Primary School — a school noted throughout south Antrim for its strong school leadership and great teaching staff, in one of the most friendly and nurturing rural environments. In many ways, it is a thriving school. It helped my two daughters to progress to their secondary education. In short, it is a school that we can all be proud of, which lacks only one thing: a sports and assembly hall that could be dually used to provide proper dining facilities. That need was first identified over 30 years ago, and, indeed, in 2016, we even had a project agreed on, plans drawn and planning approval about to be made when the £450,000 project, which was then just under the £500,000 minor works threshold, was miraculously re-costed by the EA to £850,000 — a small matter of 95% out in forecasting. To say that our school was sceptical of the EA's ability to project manage was an understatement, but, thankfully, at long last, with reason having been seen, our school was included in Minister McIlveen and then Minister Weir's school enhancement programme (SEP). I am thankful to those Ministers who, regularly, as the record in Hansard will confirm, reiterated our place on the SEP to me and other South Antrim MLAs in the Chamber. We have now completed all the numerous EA hoops of tranches, planning rounds, endless meetings on the process, detailed architect drawings and design approval, and we had even got to site surveys and ground sampling. All that we waited for was the passing of the business case. We waited, and we waited, until Friday, when, after delaying the meeting with the school — wait for it — the Education Authority's officer — the project senior responsible owner, major capital delivery service, infrastructure and capital development — told us that, as was communicated at the steering group meeting on 7 March, the RIBA stage 1 technical feasibility report was issued for business case preparations on 6 December and that, due to other prioritisation on some unidentified projects, after three decades, we are being put on hold again. Today, I have written to the Minister of Education to ask him when the policy on SEP was changed to exclude our school and, if so, when MLAs were informed about it. I have also asked, a matter of urgency, whether he and Mr Pengelly, the chief executive officer of the Education Authority, will meet our school, including its governors and parents, to explain, please, in plain English what his quango's Orwellian speak actually means. I also ask the Minister to critically examine the EA and ask why thousands of pounds of work, consultancy fees and architect's fees have been wasted yet again. We might also ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to examine the EA's costs, which, by this stage, are in all likelihood in excess of what it would have taken to build the hall in the first place.
511 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).
- 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 | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | 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 |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.71 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.24 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.03 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.02 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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