By 
THE Education Authority (EA) has announced sweeping cost saving measures for the year ahead due to a £300m shortfall in its budget.
Among these cost saving measure will be a 50p increase in the price of a set school meal for paying pupils, ending some agency contracts and reducing overtime payments and implementing savings in home to school transport
In a statement, a spokesperson for the EA said, “Education services in NI have faced growing and increasingly unsustainable budgetary shortfalls for a number of years. Living within allocated funding – whilst meeting rising service needs – has been an increasing challenge.
“The current year’s financial position for the Education Authority is a projected shortfall of circa £300m. This is not a situation anyone at EA wants to be in. It is nevertheless the reality.
“We have been advised that, unlike the position in previous years, additional significant funding allocations are unlikely to be made available to address this shortfall. The Education Authority has therefore regrettably been required to identify a series of significant savings measures.
“While these measures will inevitably have an adverse impact on services, it is also the case that they can only make a partial contribution to achieving a break-even budget, as securing in-year savings is severely limited for the EA by two factors:
“Circa 85% of our annual expenditure is incurred on payroll costs, including pay for teachers and school support staff. Making significant reductions to this cost, aside from the implications for service provision, would require a funded severance scheme. Such a scheme is not available.
“Virtually all EA’s services are statutory in nature – thus those services cannot be lawfully stopped. The savings measures identified as being deliverable, and now being taken forward by EA, have the potential to realise up to £30m in savings. They will start to take effect from this month.
“They include: Implementing savings in home to school transport, including potential renegotiated payments to taxi operators; and exploring options on individual school transport arrangements that are outside EA’s legislative and policy obligations.
“The increasing cost of taxis is of significant concern to EA. The total annual bill for taxi use has more than doubled in five years – growing from £19,428,826 in 2020/2021 to £39,753,169 in 2024/2025.
“A 50p increase in the price of a set school meal for paying pupils (primary, nursery and special schools) with equivalent percentage increases for food items in school cafeterias (post primary schools).
“These increases will take effect from January 2026. Pupils receiving free school meals will not be impacted. Prices paid for school meals have not increased since 2017/18 and will remain well below the cost of producing a meal.
“Savings impacting the EA’s Music Service. The Music Service is a non-statutory service, meaning it is one of the limited areas where there is discretion to make savings without legislative or policy change. Increasing income from charging is the most feasible way to offset the cost of delivering this service and to secure savings in-year.”
