Special needs services will not be cut assures Board chief

His assurances were given to Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson and MLAs Edwin Poots and Paul Givan, who attended an urgent meeting to discuss cuts proposed in the Boards Resource Allocation Plan for the coming year. In the plan the Board has recommended cuts of 818,000 to the Special Needs budget. However, the Lisburn politicians have said Stanton Sloan assured them these cuts would not affect frontline services and that efficiency savings would be made in administration. They have also revealed that Mr Sloan confirmed there would in fact be an increase in the special education budget of 3.7%, bringing the spend in the next school year up to 32 million. In a joint statement issued following the meeting the three local politicians said: "Mr Sloan has given an assurance to us that there will be minimal impact on the educational provision for children with special needs and that steps have been taken, through proposed efficiency savings in administration, to increase the spend on special education by 3.7% to 32m in the next school year. "This commitment is a welcome development and will provide an assurance to those parents that have been very anxious about the reported cuts." At the meeting the issue of the ICAN centre, which provides non-statutory early intervention for children with communication difficulties, was also raised and the local politicians made it clear they opposed the decision to close the centre. "The ICAN facility is a model for how early intervention through a joint educational and health centre can make a real difference, maximising the potential of those children that attend and minimising the long-term costs for additional support in future years" they said. "In the absence of the facility being retained we have been given an assurance that children with communications difficulties planning to start at the ICAN centre in September will receive assistance in their pre-school nursery schools. However we have asked the Health Minister to step in and continue funding the centre as his department has responsibility to provide the speech and language therapy and enable efforts to be made that could find a viable long term financial solution." They concluded: "We recognise the challenging financial environment that public bodies are facing but it is critical that those with greatest need are given the first priority and working with the Chief Executive we will assist him in whatever way possible to ensure the Department of Education provides the level of support that the Board requires to deliver front line services." A spokesperson for the SEELB said after the meeting: "This plan had been submitted to the Department of Education but has not yet been approved. "There are ongoing discussions and revisions being made to this document. Therefore this should be regarded as a working document," he concluded.