Debate contribution: Budget 2026-29/2030: Reports

Debate contribution by Mrs Michelle Guy on 11 May 2026.

MLA

Mrs Michelle Guy

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

11 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Budget 2026-29/2030: Reports

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5524088

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will focus my remarks on education. I start by acknowledging how tough the financial circumstances are in our education system right now.

I am sure that Members see the reality when they visit schools in their constituency. It is obvious from the physical state of some of our schools, where roofs are falling in, water is flooding classrooms and mould is growing on walls. It is obvious from the lack of support that our teachers and staff receive to meet the needs of children. It is obvious from the huge debts in which many schools find themselves.

Last week, while on a number of school visits, I had genuine well-being concerns about the school leaders who are trying to operate in the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They are faced with huge crises as they try to do their best for the children coming to school every day. The pressure feels unbearable, because the support for school leaders is simply not there. That makes them believe not that the system is about to collapse but that it has already collapsed. All our public services, including our education system, need adequate funding, but, with that acknowledgement, a number of truths need to be pointed out. First, the constant collapse of this place has harmed our education system, and that is blatantly obvious. Major structural reforms are needed in education but have not been possible because other parties continue to place their politics above the people of Northern Ireland. Secondly, the independent review of education report stated:

"The case for increased funding has greater strength if efforts are made to reduce inefficiencies where they exist."

There is no doubt that huge inefficiencies and duplication of spending undermine the Department. Those issues have not been addressed in years of DUP leadership. More than that, the current Minister of Education calls out budget pressures while, at the same time, authorises spending significant sums of money on events, trips to Florida, phone pouches and a vast array of consultants. We continue to scrutinise projects such as the Strule campus, which has an overspend of more than £220 million and was defined explicitly in the independent review of education as not representing value for money. That contradiction is hard to take for education professionals who find themselves in crisis. Thirdly, the pressures in education are not new. They are deeply embedded and have been developing for years, if not decades. Those pressures are rightly recognised in the independent review of education. They include the fact that our school estate is simply too big right now, with duplication built into the system, which results in, for example, further education colleges competing directly with schools for pupils, and the fact that vast bureaucracy has been protected in our system rather than be stripped back. For example, we have numerous management authorities instead of a single one. Finally, the real frustration for me is the procurement system, which leads to rip-off costs for our schools. The core points that I have outlined were reflected in the independent review of education when it was published back in 2023, but, to date, we have not seen any meaningful reform. In February, the Minister of Education at least finally acknowledged, in his five-year budget strategy, that there are major structural issues, but it is now late in an already shortened mandate. For example, the opportunity to establish a planning commission to analyse our school estate could have been done already. I do not pretend that achieving those reforms will be easy, but Ministers are paid to make difficult decisions, not easy ones. I agree with the Minister's point in his budget strategy that classrooms should be protected. We should be making decisions in the best interests of children and young people, and that has not always happened to date. Too often, the current system favours sectors, and those sectors have been protected. I hope that we can get to a point at which a fair multi-year Budget can be agreed. We are already hearing about the uncertainty that is being caused by not having an agreed Budget in place. School leaders are getting in touch with me, concerned that funding for particular programmes will disappear. Vital organisations such as TinyLife are left not knowing whether funding will be in place. I hope that greater cross-departmental work can be done to make the Budget go further and that people, especially children and young people, are placed at the centre when it comes to how the Budget is spent.

755 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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