MICHELLE McAlveen's department has conceded that it does not know what its capital budget will be beyond next week – just days after the minister announced an £800m building programme for 28 schools.
The Department of Education said the minister unveiled the plans in the assembly on Monday "on the assumption" that its allocation of capital funding would be "made in due course".
There is currently no executive in place to agree a budget following the resignation of DUP first minister Paul Givan at the beginning of February. There is also growing speculation that the DUP will stall the restoration of an executive after the assembly election, due to its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Stormont education committee chairman Chris Lyttle told The Irish News he had a number of concerns about Ms McIlveen's announcement, including why only 28 schools had been earmarked for funding when the north's entire schools estate is in an "extremely poor state".
"The announcement is very welcome for the 28 schools out of approximately one thousand across Northern Ireland but there are questions about the deliverability of this programme, especially where the funds will come from in the absence of an executive to agree budgets," he said.
"I'm also at a loss to understand why it's only 28 schools, given the scale of the funding and the extremely poor state of the entire schools estate – there needs to be more detail on where this money is coming from and when project will be delivered."
Mr Lyttle said there were other aspects of schools funding where certainty was required.
"We had an assembly statement on this capital programme but there was silence on the schools budget for next year, on fair pay for schools staff, the long-overdue childcare budget, and on the Engage programme, a really important health and wellbeing initiative to ensure recovery from the pandemic for our children and young people," he said.
The Alliance MLA also voiced concern about the revelation in Ms McIlveen's statement to the assembly that only one-third of the major capital works programme announced since 2012 had been completed.
"I don't want to detract from what is good news for a small number of schools but people could be forgiven for wondering about the deliverability of this latest announcement," he said.
A response from the Department of Education to Mr Lyttle's concerns said the capital works announced by the minister was "one of a number of programmes that deliver significant investment every year in the school estate.".
"The department’s capital budget is not known beyond March 2022, however the minister was content to announce these projects on the assumption that the department’s allocation of capital funding will be made in due course and will remain at a level broadly similar to that of recent years and the programme can be managed within that budget," a department spokesperson said.
