Official Report (Hansard)

Session: 2014/2015

Date: 08 October 2014

Committee for Education

PDF version of this report (206.77 kb)

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Good afternoon.  Thank you for your patience.  We received a lot of information this morning, and members were very much engaged in that.  It was useful to hear it just before the briefing with yourselves.  I welcome Jacqui Durkin, director of area planning; Lorraine Finlay, head of area planning and policy team; and Dorina Edgar, another head of area planning and policy team.  If you want to make an opening statement, you are very welcome to do so, or we can go to questions.

 

Ms Jacqui Durkin (Department of Education): I have a very short opening statement, if you could bear with me, Chair.  I am conscious of time, so if you would prefer to move to questions, that is fine.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): If it is brief, we can do that.

 

Ms J Durkin: OK.  Thankfully, you have introduced us.  I have recently been appointed as director of area planning, so I am learning a lot about the area planning process as well.  The Department welcomes this opportunity to provide the Education Committee with information on the strategic context in which primary area plans have been brought forward by the education and library boards working closely with the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) and the other education sectors.

 

Some of what I have to say may have already been touched on by the boards and CCMS, so I will try my best to keep the duplication to a minimum.  It is worth noting from the outset that the concept of area planning is a simple one; it is to plan to meet the needs of our children and young people by putting the right type and size of school in the right place and by ensuring that the schools are providing high-quality education to meet the needs of all pupils.  However, as recent experiences have demonstrated, area planning is a complex and multifaceted process that requires vision and commitment.  It must focus on the needs of pupils rather than institutions.  As the Minister has said, this is the first time that planning on this scale has been initiated.  It is clear that we are all learning as the process progresses.  It is vital that we reflect on what has been achieved to date and what the perceived barriers are and that we work with our education partners to continually improve and refine the process for the future.

 

You asked us here today to talk about the primary area plans, and you also sent a letter about specific issues that impact on area planning.  The Department has provided you with a written response on those matters.  In support of the topic of primary area plans, which is the subject of today's session, you have been provided with some facts and figures that set the context for primary planning.  I am not going to go over the figures in detail, but I hope that you agree that progress has been made.  You will be aware that the majority of surplus places are in the primary sector.  Since the introduction of area planning, over 5,700 places have been removed.  Interestingly, while 1,820 places can be attributed to school closures, over 2,600 places have been removed through the amalgamation of schools.  We have also seen schools being right-sized through a reduction in the approved enrolment numbers.  That has removed over 1,200 further places.  These figures cannot be netted off the total as we have had other proposals for increasing school numbers.  Around 1,800 places will have been added when the proposals are fully implemented.  That, again, is rightsizing provision in some areas to reflect parental preferences and population changes.  All these changes have been brought about through the development proposal process.

 

The increase in the number of development proposals is testament to the work that the board, the CCMS and the other education partners have undertaken to date.  However, there is still much to do, and momentum is vital.  You will see in your papers that I have outlined the time frame for the delivery of the primary area plans.  There have been conflicting views about the primary planning process.  Some said that the time frame was unduly protracted, and others have said that schools and communities have not yet been properly involved and that the pace of change is too fast.

 

The Department's role in the area planning process is to set the policy and budgetary context for area planning and to provide advice and guidance to support the process.  The education and library boards, working with CCMS and other education sectors, are charged with drawing up area plans for consideration by the Department.  As you know, those were interim arrangements that drew on the powers in the current legislation.  They were put in place in anticipation that the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) would be established and that it would be the single planning authority for all schools, taking account of the views of the sectoral support bodies. 

 

To support the process, the Department established the area planning coordination group in 2012, which comprised the Department, the five education and library boards, the CCMS and the chief executive-designate of ESA.  That was later expanded to include the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE), Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) and a representative of the Department for Employment and Learning, who provides advice on further education policy.  The group became known as the area planning steering group.  Through the group, the area planning process for the post-primary plans was examined, and lessons were learnt and transferred to the primary process.

 

Some of the criticisms of the post-primary plans were that they were not uniform and that interested parties in all areas were not getting the same information.  To address that issue, the Department worked closely with the planning authorities throughout the development of the primary plans to agree a primary plan template.  That was adopted by all the boards.  Board and CCMS officers worked together to agree common language and a consistent approach to report their findings.  That is reflected in the primary plans. 

 

It is important to note that we have over 800 primary schools.  Many of them will require no change, but significant numbers need to be assessed against the sustainable schools policy criteria and the local area context so that firm proposals can be developed.  It is inevitable and desirable that that requires a phased approach.  However, the Department has asked the school managing authorities to deal with those schools evidencing most stress as a matter of priority. 

 

Area planning is a live and ongoing process that will be affected by the changes resulting from a single education authority.  The Department intends to work with all the education partners to develop appropriate arrangements to ensure that area planning continues effectively with the aim of achieving a network of viable and sustainable schools. 

 

I will end there.  Lorraine, Dorina and I will be happy to try to answer your questions.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): No doubt, you will be asked some of the questions that were asked earlier.  Are you in a position to give us a cost for the process?  Obviously, you bid for additional moneys in the June monitoring.  The boards were not able to give us a definitive costing.  Can you do that?

 

Ms Durkin: We cannot estimate how much the individual boards are spending currently within their existing resources on area planning.  While the full bid was not met, we have some information on the funding that has been made available to the end of this financial year to the various boards.  I will pass to Dorina, who will give you that information.

 

Mrs Dorina Edgar (Department of Education): We asked the boards and CCMS to give us some indication of the extra resources that they needed, and we scrutinised and challenged those.  Although you mentioned earlier that we had made a bid for £1·2 million, not all of that money was needed based on their bids.  We got around £900,000, and we allocated that out based on the fact that they would not be able to have extra staff in post before December.  They were allocated that amount of money on a pro rata basis.  CCMS got another £34,000, the North Eastern Board got £44,000, the Belfast Board got £44,000, the South Eastern Education and Library Board got £47,000, the Southern Board got £54,000 and the Western Board got £34,000.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): They are already in receipt of that money.

 

Mrs Edgar: Yes, that money has been allocated.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): But is there still further assistance to be given for staff resources?

 

Mrs Edgar: The extra money was to cover the cost of engaging extra staff to give a bit more impetus to the area planning process.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You will have heard the representative from CCMS say that the assistance had yet to materialise.

 

Ms Durkin: I think that he was indicating that the process to identify and recruit those additional resources had still not been completed.  Obviously there will be a time lag between them getting the money and how they decide to use and allocate that resource.  However, each board and the CCMS have received notification of the funding that would be made available for additional resources and support for area planning and the development proposal process.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): It baffles me that we are well into a process, and yet no one is able to tell us how much the process has cost or is costing.

 

Mrs Lorraine Finlay (Department of Education): As the representatives from the boards said, that is because area planning is an integral part of what the boards do.  They strategically plan for education provision in their area; therefore, the budget that they already have is for that purpose.  Instead of strategically planning in the way they did, they are now doing it under the area planning process.  It is a priority for the boards to strategically plan.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): I want to turn to the letter that you referred to, which is in our briefing papers, and the methodology that is used to calculate unfilled places.  It appears to be very mechanistic in its approach.  The comments from the board were that perhaps it does not really reflect the reality of the current use of the school estate.  The paper says that it is impossible to cost each unfilled space.  Therefore, we are not able to calculate whether there are financial savings here, and so the financial savings are unknown.  You state that the majority of schools costs are people-related and very much dependent on pupils.  As a result, no real staff efficiencies can be gleaned from that.  You go on to say that it is important to make sure that schools have enough pupils to deliver a funding stream to enable the curriculum to be delivered. We talk about the size and how that correlates to performance.  Research that we received said that very often a small school can still perform well. I suppose that I am asking whether there are any views in the Department on whether you want to look again at how the number of unfilled spaces is calculated and whether there is a possibility of looking at enrolment as part of the calculation that you use to go through this process, which has quite a mechanistic approach.

Mrs Finlay: As the letter clearly states, the process uses the approved enrolment number and the capacity of the school.  Obviously, you cannot have an enrolment number that exceeds the capacity that the school can take, because the children have to have desks and chairs and accommodation.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): I understand that, but the issue really is about the unfilled spaces.

 

Mrs Finlay: The difference between the capacity of the school and the actual enrolment number — the capacity of the school and the number of children in it — identifies the surplus places.  However, there are a lot of caveats around that information, as you can see, such as who is included in the numbers and who is not.  The Department has always been quite up front about the fact that, although the figures are what they are, there may be a better way of calculating them.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Have you looked at how other jurisdictions calculate?

 

Mrs Finlay: The difficulty is that our curriculum is not the same and that school accommodation is designed to deliver the curriculum.  The difficulty is in the transfer across, if it is a different type of curriculum.  As Ray said earlier about the foundation stage, things have changed.  However, at the same time, schools have also changed.  While they were originally built for a capacity of X number of hundreds, as the curriculum has changed, schools' use of the accommodation has changed as well. 

 

There is also the Manhattan system that registers all the different types of use of classrooms.  The boards and the Department both use that system.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You said that progress has been made so far in bridging the gap of unfilled places.  Obviously, that is to be encouraged, but would those figures have been achieved without this framework, or do you feel that there are more positives that have come out of it?

 

Mrs Finlay: In terms of area planning?

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Yes.

 

Mrs Finlay: We have presented figures from different milestones throughout the process:  from devolution to the sustainable schools policy; from the sustainable schools to area planning; and then from area planning to date, and you can see that there is a marked increase in the number of development proposals.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Have many of those proposals come from the result of budget pressures on boards, where they have had to be much more focused in their approach to looking at sharing and closures and so on than they would have had to in the past?

 

Mrs Finlay: The Minister has always made it very clear that area planning is not a cost-saving exercise; it is about the more efficient and effective use of the money that we already have.  Regardless of whether there had been severe budget pressures or not, we would have had to do this anyway to make sure that we were getting the best results from the money that we have available.  The Minister is very focused on putting money to front line services.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): We had a discussion on the numbers threshold of around 105, and the boards are now looking at that number being around 85.  Are you taking that on board and accepting the arguments that they are putting to you?

 

Ms J Durkin: Enrolment numbers are one of the six factors in the sustainable schools policy; it is not just numbers of enrolment that are looked at in isolation.  There were many examples that the boards and CCMS gave where smaller schools in isolated communities were required, regardless of the pupil number.  That is only one of many pieces of information that is used and that boards use when they put forward development proposals.

 

Mr Rogers: Ladies, you are very welcome.  I want to follow on from a point that you made, Lorraine, that enrolment numbers must not be greater than the capacity of the school.  Let us take, for example, St Colman's Primary School in Lambeg, which has an enrolment of 350 and its new school has 12 classrooms.  Three hundred and fifty children gives you 50 children per annum; there are two classes by seven, which gives you 14 classes.  Where is the logic there?

 

Mrs Finlay: Each school decides how it sets up its arrangements.  Each school decides on the number of teachers that it employs, and that determines the number of classes that it has.  The Department's accommodation schedules are for the number of children, not the number of teachers that a school decides to employ.

 

Mr Rogers: With 350 pupils as the enrolment number — Dromore Primary School is another case in point — there is no other way that you could organise it.

 

Mrs Finlay: I cannot talk about specific schools; I do not know the whole situation at St Colman's.

 

Mr Rogers: OK.  The North Eastern Education and Library Board talks about two unsatisfactory sustainability ratings from the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI).  Has ETI a role in sustainability?

 

Mrs Finlay: Yes, because ETI looks at the quality of education provision and at management and leadership in schools, which are two of the factors that we consider as part of the sustainable schools policy.  ETI has a role as the Department's professional adviser.

 

Mr Rogers: I am thinking particularly of our rural primary schools, many of which are under the 105 threshold but over the 85.  Could they, effectively, have an unsatisfactory rating just because of their numbers?

 

Mrs Finlay: ETI would not go into a school and say that; it looks at education quality.

 

Mr Rogers: The quality of provision, yes.

 

Mrs Finlay: ETI will comment if a school has a number below the threshold, but, as the boards said earlier, sustainable schools is a policy for review; it is not a school closure policy.  The criteria are triggers for review; it is not the case that if you do not meet the criteria and tick the box you are closed.  It does not work like that.  I think that you got that sense from the boards and CCMS earlier.

 

Mr Rogers: Finally — you will be glad to hear — I want to ask about the Fermanagh experience.  Does the Department support cross-border sharing among small rural schools, although it might not be cross-community sharing?

 

Mrs Finlay: The Department is very open to anything that can allow children to avail themselves of high-quality education.  The Minister has given a commitment to explore cross-border options.  We will have to look at the fact that there are two different curricula and two different age ranges for schools.  It is not without its challenges, but the Department has committed to looking at it.

 

Mrs Edgar: May I add to that?  It is in the terms of reference for area planning:  cross-border planning is one of the areas that you can consider.

 

Mr Lunn: You listened to me at length from the back of the room, so I will not cover old ground again.  There is a fear that we have embarked on a process that, on the face of it, does not seem to take account of the needs of one particular sector and the possibility of significant growth in that sector if it were allowed to grow in that way.  The question is fairly simple.  You have an obligation to facilitate and encourage, and you have a ministerial instruction here, part of which I readout earlier, following the previous judgement.  You have serious parental demand. and there is evidence of big demand for integrated education.

 

All that is versus the needs model, which appears not to take account or allow for any growth in the integrated sector.  Either the Minister, or perhaps it was the Department, has said that, following the Drumragh Integrated College judgement, the needs model does not require amendment and is fine.  That is slightly contradictory to the emphasis of what the judge said, but that is for another day.  How do you marry the two?

 

Ms J Durkin: The needs model gives you an indication of projected population — the projected numbers of schoolchildren who might be entering the school system.  It is just that; it is about numbers that project population.  There are other issues and factors that need to be taken into account.  The Department is very clear about its statutory duty to encourage and facilitate integrated and Irish-medium education.  I would say that it is one factor with regard to what projected enrolment might be.  It is considered.  Again, the sustainable schools policy is very clear on the other factors.  We certainly would have a view that you need to look at the other factors that contribute to a sustainable school and not just at numbers in isolation.  So, the needs model is a useful indicator, but it is not the only thing that is looked at with regard to what other evidence there is to support a sustainable school in a particular area.

 

Mr Lunn: If there was a development proposal to amalgamate two schools — one controlled and one maintained, which would be ideal in the circumstances of what you are trying to do — and that was supported by the governors, trustees and parents of both schools, could CCMS block it?

 

Ms J Durkin: You would look to all the evidence, the consultation process and all the information that was coming through the development proposal process.  A lot of conversation this morning has been about the consultation process and its validity.  When it gets to a development proposal coming to the Department, a wide range of information and consultation material is looked at and reviewed.  Ultimately, the decision to endorse a proposal that is put forward by one of the boards is a matter for the Minister, but that will be after close scrutiny and consideration of all the information that is put forward.

 

Mr Lunn: You are nearly as good as Malachy.

 

Mrs Finlay: One of the models being explored under the shared education proposals is jointly managed schools, whereby Catholic and Protestant trustees and transferors come together.  The Department is looking at that and how it could be given effect under legislation or whether it would need new legislation.  It is definitely on the table as a possibility.

 

Mr Lunn: That is OK.  I am not really asking about that.  What I am asking is fairly straightforward.  Everybody else was in agreement that the best solution for a local area was the amalgamation of these two schools, one from each sector.  It comes before the Minister, and CCMS says, "No.  We are the guardians of Catholic-maintained education, and we will never agree to such a suggestion."  Does it have the legal authority as a separate body from the boards to block such a proposal?

 

Mrs Finlay: I do not think that anyone has a veto when it comes to a development proposal.  It would depend on what the proposal is and the management type of the school.  If it is for a Catholic-managed school, CCMS is the guardian of the Catholic-maintained sector.  What would the management type of a new school be?  It might be other maintained school.

 

Mr Lunn: It might not necessarily be a new school.

 

Mrs Finlay: I think that it may have to be a new school because an amalgamation requires the closure of two schools and the opening of a new one.

 

Mr Lunn: On one of their respective sites?

 

Mrs Finlay: Not necessarily.  They may eventually go to a new site.

 

Mr Lunn: But not necessarily plan new construction.  The sensible solution may be, as perhaps in the Moy, to amalgamate them on one site.  I am just interested in the authority of CCMS here and its ability to do its own thing no matter what anybody else thinks, and how that affects or could affect a genuine area-planning process.  It seems to me that, down the years, it has been able to go its own way.  They said earlier that CCMS has made great progress on this.  It has:  it has made great progress on area-based planning for the maintained sector.  That is what it has done.  I know that you cannot really give me a definitive answer.  I would be interested to find out whether CCMS has the power to block such a proposal if the trustees, boards of governors and parents of both schools have expressed a wish and the education board in question has no problem with it.  What can CCMS do about it?

 

Mrs Finlay: The point is that CCMS can make its views known, like everyone else.  The final decision-maker is the Minister.  As Jacqui said, he will weigh up all the information and take a view on what he thinks is the best way forward.

 

Mr Newton: I thank the officials for coming up.  Mine is a very short question.  We are some 20 months late on the delivery of an area plan for special needs schools.  Am I right in that?

 

Mrs Edgar: The Minister did see some plans for special needs schools, but he asked that a more strategic view be taken.  He charged the Belfast Board, which has particular expertise, with producing a report.  That was done in, I think, January of this year.  The report is nearing completion.

 

Mr Newton: When was it supposed to be delivered?

 

Mrs Edgar: June.

 

Mr Newton: But the first report was supposed to be delivered about 20 months ago or so.  Am I wrong in that?  When are we actually going to get a plan for special needs schools?

 

Mrs Edgar: The report being written by the working group is nearing completion.  I do not want to give you a specific date, but it is almost there.

 

Mr Newton: Have a guess.

 

Mrs Edgar: You would only shout at me.

 

Mr Newton: It is nearing completion.

 

Mrs Edgar: It is nearing completion.

 

Mr Newton: OK.

 

Mr Kinahan: I have two very short questions.  You heard my concerns in the previous session.  The other day, CCMS showed me some figures that justified or did not justify the number of pupils coming in.  Does everyone get the same figures, or are CCMS, the Department and the controlled sector using their own figures?

 

Ms J Durkin: They should be, but we could not say for sure whether CCMS has other information or data.  Certainly, information on the needs model is published on the departmental website, and we work from the place that all boards and CCMS are using that data.

 

Mr Kinahan: OK.  My other question is more about rural areas where, in area planning, you are looking at schools sharing, amalgamating eventually or closing.  Is anyone actually looking at the transport cost effects of each school and taking that trend forward?  If you went back about 30 years and looked at transport costs, you would see — I am guessing — that they have doubled or trebled.

 

Ms J Durkin: When boards put forward development proposals, transport costs are one area that they look at.  In the Department we work with colleagues who are involved in school transport and seek their views on the development proposal and the potential impact on transport and transport costs.

 

Mr Newton: I have another short question, which I should have raised with the previous delegation.  In the Belfast area in particular, it is estimated that, for Irish-medium education provision — correct me if I am wrong — there are an estimated 1,500 places available.  It is my understanding that 1,000 of them are currently filled.

 

Ms J Durkin: We do not have those figures.

 

Mrs Finlay: We do not have exact figures for the Irish-medium side.  You have to remember that it is a growing sector and, sometimes, when a development proposal is approved, it is approved to allow phased growth to a certain number.  I am not quite sure whether the figures that you are using are the final figures of the projected enrolment for a school.  In developing sectors, we always propose a development proposal allowing a school to grow.  It is the same as in the integrated sector.  There is a —

 

Mr Newton: I was going to contrast that to your answers.

 

Mr Lunn: So was I.

 

Mr Newton: If I am right about the number of places, how would you look at those?  If 1,000 places are filled and 1,500 are available, how are you going to look at those places?

 

Mrs Finlay: The sustainable schools policy applies to all schools.  It is the same process as the annual area profile.  You would expect the school managing authorities to look at some of the schools that are evidencing severe stress.  The same rules apply to all schools.

 

Mr Newton: So, if I look at the figures, I will find that the projections will indicate that those 1,500 places will be filled in the sustainable schools policy.

 

Mrs Finlay: We would expect the places to be filled.

 

Mr Newton: Will you just allow those to sit there in the meantime?

 

Mrs Finlay: No, they need to be picked up in the area-planning process.  They cannot just sit there and wait until they are filled.

 

Mr Newton: OK.

 

Ms J Durkin: As Lorraine said, those schools should be identified and picked up through stress indicators in the annual area profile, and some action should be taken on them.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): I understand that you are working on a regional strategy for Irish-medium education.  Is that the reason for the delay in addressing some of the issues in Irish-medium education?

 

Mrs Finlay: The Minister had commissioned a ministerial advisory group to prepare a paper on post-primary Irish-medium education, and it has done that.  My understanding is that it has been reviewed in the Department and is with the Minister for consideration.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): In the meantime, is that why there is a hold on any movement with regard to addressing the issue of unfilled places?

 

Mrs Finlay: I was not aware that there was a hold on addressing surplus places in the Irish-medium sector.

 

Mr Newton: Maybe that could be confirmed to the Committee.

 

The Committee Clerk: For factual accuracy, if you look at the boards' plans, they all indicate that, in respect of Irish-medium schools, even where there were schools with large numbers of vacancies, there were no proposals for change because they were awaiting a regional strategy for Irish-medium education.  That is the primary-school plans that I am talking about.

 

Mr Newton: Are the members saying that that plan is now ready?

 

Mrs Finlay: We will come back to you on that.  We will need to check what it says in the area plans again.  I know that the ministerial advisory group specifically focused on post-primary education.

 

Mr Lunn: Robin probably made the point for me, but I am interested in the notion of phased or anticipated growth.  That is exactly what is missing.  If there is a clear demand that could produce growth in a particular sector, there should be some recognition of that in the area-based plans and the needs model.

 

Mrs Finlay: The needs model does a particular job, which is to project population projections.  We have always said that the area boards and the planning authorities can look in their own area and adjust the needs model; they do not have to accept it in its entirety.  It is simply a projection of population based on Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) statistics.  If a board, the CCMS, the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE) or Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) feel that there is a need to alter those projections to allow for growth — or contraction — in any sector, they can do that.

 

Mr Lunn: The way that it sits at the moment, it gives the boards and the Department another excuse to hold back the development of what should be a growing sector based on popularity and demand.  That is what it does at the moment.

 

Ms J Durkin: The needs model does not project parental preference or demographic trends in where people move or work.  As Lorraine said, it is about projected numbers of pupils, but it does not give those projections.  That is where it is open to the boards, through the development proposal process, to make that information through NICIE or CnaG to say where the information and evidence is to say that there is a projected growth in that area and how that —

 

Mr Lunn: Correct me if I am wrong, and I may have the wrong impression, but does it not project the number of places required in the controlled and maintained sectors?

 

Mrs Finlay: If all things remain the same.

 

Mr Lunn: If all things remain the same; however, it does not project any growth in the integrated sector or the Irish-medium sector.  That is what I keep banging on about.

 

Mrs Finlay: The point is that it projects if everything remains the same, but the planning authorities, working with CnaG and NICIE, can change that.

 

Mr Lunn: They can turn down transformation proposals because it might upset the applecart with the projected numbers in each sector and perhaps even that old chestnut of damaging existing school provision.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): I have a few questions.  If you do not have all the answers, I would appreciate it if you could forward them on.  Does the Department have a target number of primary schools that it wishes to achieve?

 

Mrs Edgar: No.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): I know that this is not about money, but a number of schools have been closed and amalgamations have taken place.  Can you provide us with information on how much money has been saved as a result of the reduction?

 

Ms J Durkin: No.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You cannot do that.  Can you tell us whether any of the schools that have been closed or amalgamated had deficits?

 

Mrs Finlay: Yes, we can tell you that.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Did any debts have to be paid?

 

Mrs Finlay: We can give you the information about whether they had surpluses or deficits on closure or amalgamation.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): That would be useful.  Thank you very much.

 

Mrs Finlay: How far back would you like to go?

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): For the past five years.

Mr Kinahan: Did any sales of properties bring in funds?

 

Mrs Finlay: We can find that out for you.

 

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): That would be very useful.  Thank you for your time.

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