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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Damien Edgar

Sure Start and youth services funding cuts avoided

Proposed cuts to funding for youth and Sure Start services, the Pathway Fund, Bright Start will not now go ahead.

The Department of Education announced the news on Thursday.

As a result of budgetary pressures and the Stormont impasse, it was feared that cuts would have to be made to the vital services.

Read more: Families and community groups come together to protest against cuts in Northern Ireland

In its statement the Department of Education said its budget for 2023/24 "has been cut by £66.4m (2.5%) compared to last year, despite rising costs and increasing demands for services, resulting in an estimated funding gap of around £382m".

The Engage, Healthy Happy Minds and School Holiday Food Grant schemes were ceased from the end of March 2023 and reductions were made to the Education Authority’s Aggregated Schools Budget and Block Grant as a result.

Education Permanent Secretary Dr Mark Browne said: "The Department’s vision for all children is that they will be happy, learning and succeeding. Delivering on this is particularly challenging in the current budgetary context, especially in terms of addressing the needs of our most disadvantaged children and young people.

"We know that early intervention, especially for our most vulnerable, is critical for development, improving learning outcomes and supporting longer term societal benefits.

"Accordingly, having carefully considered all of the principles in the Secretary of State’s decision making guidance, I am not cutting funding to Youth services and a range of Early Years programmes including the Pathway Fund, Sure Start, Bright Start and Toybox.

"In addition I am not proceeding with the full scale of proposed cuts to Extended Schools."

Mr Browne said decisions of that magnitude should not fall into the remit of his role.

"In considering the scale and cumulative impact of the proposed cuts, which represent a major change to long standing Ministerial programmes and policies, I am of the view that such a decision should be taken by a Minister, not a Permanent Secretary," he said.

"Evidence shows that the scale of the proposed cuts to Early Years, Extended Schools and Youth Service programmes would create greater budgetary pressures for the next financial year and beyond across a range of areas, including special educational needs.

"Furthermore, the reductions would cause significant detriment to the provision of services for our most vulnerable children, young people and families, and run counter to all the Department’s efforts to tackle educational disadvantage."

An Equality Impact Assessment Consultation is to be published by the department with the responses used to inform decisions on further mitigations.

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