TREASURY Minister Eddie Teare MHK refused to give assurances over future funding for the pre-school credit scheme when he appeared before a Tynwald scrutiny committee.
Mr Teare was clearly in no mood to give more than a cursory response to the committee’s questions and his testimony was cut short with the witness accused by the chairman of being ‘unhelpful’.
Refusing to be drawn on the issue of funding for the pre-school vouchers scheme, Mr Teare said it was not up to him to give any assurances.
‘I will not give a view because that could well be taken as a Treasury view,’ he told the committee ,which is investigating the merits of the policy to privatise the pre-school service.
‘It’s unfortunate that you wish to be unhelpful,’ committee chairman Brenda Cannell MHK told him.
Mr Teare, who was Education Minister for 17 months until October last year, told the committee he would not have cut the pre-schools and that it was his view that university tuition fees should have been introduced instead.
Committee member Steve Rodan MHK asked whether he had presented his successor in education, Peter Karran, with an option to introduce tuition fees as a means of balancing the department’s budget and remove the need to close or reduce pre-school provision,.
Mr Teare replied an offer had been put on the table but that ‘unfortunately’ nothing had been forthcoming from the department.
He denied there had been a clash of personalities but that Mr Karran MHK had told him he would not go down the route of tuition fees.
He said that was a decision for Mr Karran as the minister at the time.
Mrs Cannell suggested this must have been frustrating for him. ‘I’m quite philosophical,’ Mr Teare replied.
Earlier, Stuart Dobson, chief executive of the Department of Education and Children, revealed during his evidence to the Social Affairs Policy Review Committee that his department was likely to face further serious budget cuts – and that it was already predicted to overspend on the pre-school credit scheme.
Asked by committee member David Callister MLC whether it would be likely the public would be expected to pay more towards pre-school provision in future, Mr Dobson replied: ‘I can see where you get that view from’, adding that the three-year predictive budgets would involve some further ‘very serious reductions’.
He said 818 people had applied for the credits to date and 532 children were currently attending one of 34 pre-school settings. With 200 vouchers at the higher rate of £1,150 and 618 at the lower rate of £350, the total cost so far was £446,300 – £46,300 above the £400,000 allocated by Treasury. Mrs Cannell suggested that was not sustainable.
Mr Dobson revealed another looming problem with the latest census indicating considerable growth in the number of children reaching school age which could lead to the equivalent of five extra reception classes being needed, he told the committee.
Questioned about the pre-school privatisation, the chief executive insisted there had been no moves to change the policy before Mr Karran’s appointment as minister.
He said he was personally disappointed that we do not have a policy where early year education is free for all at the point of delivery.
And he accepted the lower rate voucher did not for pay for sufficient sessions.
Mr Dobson said it would be impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of the privatisation policy until this time next year when the department could examine the entry profiles of the next intake of children into reception class.
He said if it turned out that children were not getting on as well, his department would work with colleagues in Social Care to ‘bring more rigour to bear’.
He said it could be possible to amend the day care standards to include ‘much more rigorous detail about what is expected’ and if private nursery operators didn’t meet those standards they could lose their licence to operate.