To ask the Minister of Education to outline the measures he is taking to reduce bureaucracy within the Education Authority and the Department’s arms-length bodies.

Mr Givan

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 reviews will shortly produce recommendations on how delivery models can be more responsive, agile and customer-focused. Service delivery improvements will be achieved initially through the reconfiguration and refocusing of services delivered by the EA and other education bodies. Progress will be closely monitored, and, if necessary, more fundamental structural change will be implemented.

Mr Givan

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 managing authorities operate, they do so on an equitable basis, providing support to the various sectors. The Education Authority has failed the controlled sector in particular. The independent review of education provided evidence to that effect, as did the landscape review of the Education Authority. There is work taking place to highlight how those issues need to be addressed. There is evidence for that. We have engaged with schools on that task force, and that is providing further evidence on the need for change. However, I expect the managing authorities to work together to deliver consistency in the level of support that is required, but there is a clear need to address the failings that exist in relation to the controlled sector.

Mr Brooks

In his answers so far, the Minister has, in some ways, commented on what I was going to ask, namely whether he agrees that the Education Authority has been failing our controlled schools. Perhaps he would like to comment further on the evidence for that.

Mr Givan

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:

It then says:

It also says:

It also says:

It also says:

The evidence is clear, and the landscape review also provided clear evidence on EA's failings towards the controlled sector.

Mr Crawford

Minister, I have a follow-on from Mr Dickson's original question. How will the Department monitor progress on reducing red tape in the Education Authority, and what matrix will be used to evaluate success?

Mr Givan

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 improved over recent years, many aspects of the operation of the Education Authority remain profoundly unsatisfactory. This is ongoing work that my Department has with the EA to ensure that, as an organisation, it addresses the failings that have been well documented and rehearsed not just in independent reviews but by many Members across the Chamber.

Ms Hunter

As recently as Friday, Minister, I was at a school and spoke with parents, teachers and principals about the lack of responsiveness from the EA. Off the back of that, can you detail some specific examples of what has been done to transform the work culture in the EA with regard to criticism about a lack of responsiveness?

Mr Givan

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 me rather than doing what happened on that occasion, when the leader of the SDLP took the opportunity to have a go — unnecessarily so.