NI Education: Children will be 'poor cousins' after Stormont budget

The NAHT's Graham Gault said children are being "cheated of their present and future"

Children in Northern Ireland will be "poor distant cousins", after the Department of Education was told it needs to make significant cuts, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has said.

The Northern Ireland secretary set out a budget for departments on Thursday.

He said the department would need to take action to live within its budget.

The NAHT said on Sunday that children are being "cheated of their present and future".

"In the Autumn Statement, the chancellor said that schools in England would not face any more cuts, but here we are in Northern Ireland with the secretary of state's announcement and our children again as the poor distant cousins will be facing more cuts," the NAHT's Graham Gault told the BBC Northern Ireland's Sunday Politics.

"This is on top of over a decade of hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds being taken away from our schools and education system.

"The vast majority of our schools are in significant financial deficit - the Education Authority has a black hole of £300m.

"Whoever thought that we could take hundreds of millions of pounds away from frontline education and expect the services to be maintained?

"This from the secretary of state is just another blow that our children will have to absorb."

Louise Warde-Hunter, principal and chief executive of Belfast Metropolitan College, said that the further education sector was concerned about the cuts "coming towards us".

"The six further education colleges are already being asked to model £12m worth of savings," she added.

She said they would initially target "non-staff expenditure areas" but added: "The reality is that ultimately it could hit the front line."

"We've got 51,000 students across Northern Ireland, we are vital to the 9,000 employers we work with day and daily across Northern Ireland, so to cut that engine at this time could have long-term consequences."

Stormont overspend

Departments in Northern Ireland have been operating without proper budgets since the start of the financial year in April.

They had been on course to overspend by £660m this financial year, equivalent to almost 5% of the budget.

However, it emerged that has been reduced to about £330m after work by the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the Northern Ireland Office.

BBC News NI understands an overspend will ultimately be avoided by the Treasury allowing Stormont to take an advance on next year's block grant.

Stormont was due to get an extra £360m next year as a result of extra spending in the Autumn Statement.

Chris Heaton-Harris says cuts to the Education Authority's block grant and the aggregated schools budget will be "unavoidable"

Last week, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said that although education would receive a cash increase of £286m compared to last year's baseline, the department would need to take action to live within its budget.

"This will affect funding for high-spend areas such as the Education Authority's block grant and the aggregated schools budget," the secretary of state explained.

"As some costs are demand driven, this will have impacts.

"However, these are unavoidable given the scale of the overspend risk facing the department.

"The required action to curtail expenditure must be taken by all education spending areas in order to live within budget."

The executive had not agreed a budget when the DUP withdrew from the first minister's role in February in protest at the Northern Ireland Protocol.

An independent watchdog has previously said the lack of a budget had contributed to a significant potential overspend.