Over £2 Billion Spent On Education In The North Last Year

Speaking about the provisional figures for 2009-10, reflecting an extra £90 million spent on education services compared to 2008-09, the Minister said: "Last year saw record levels of expenditure in excess of £2 billion for education. With spend of almost 99% on the current budget and almost 100% on the capital budget, this means full use has been made of the resources allocated to me by the Executive last year to secure continued improvement in the quality of education provided to our children and young people."

Ms Ruane highlighted that expenditure on the current budget amounted to almost £2 billion, while on the capital budget, expenditure was in excess of £242 million.

The overall level expenditure represents over 99.0% of the education budget and is in line with the 99.1% achieved in 2008-09.

On the current budget, £20.2 million fell as underspend in 2009-10. The majority of this relates to underspend in Education and Library Boards and schools part of which the Minister said was attributable to the delay in the establishment of ESA. On capital investment, the level of underspend in 2009-10 was £100,000.

The Minister said that in the past year funding to schools' delegated budgets had increased by 5.3% compared to 2008-09, including an increase in the proportion of funding made available to primary schools. In 2009-10, the Minister also made available additional funding to assist parents on low incomes with the cost of school uniforms for primary school children.

An additional £5 million was also made available by the Minister to supplement the existing level of investment by the Education and Library Boards in school maintenance.

The Minister announced that expenditure on the capital budget for 2009-10 was £242 million and noted that this amounted to almost full utilisation of the capital budget with 99.9% of planned spend being achieved.

This level of capital expenditure represented £43 million more being used for investment in the schools' estate capital infrastructure compared to 2008-09.

The Minister concluded by stressing the vital importance of ensuring full and effective use of all resources and said that the importance of this was even more stark in the context of the continuing constrained financial position facing all public services.