Education Authority non-teaching staff offered unpaid leave

All 3,500 non-teaching staff employed by the Education Authority have been offered unpaid leave for the months of July and/or August.

The offer was made this week.

The Education Authority has made the move in response to a cut in its budget from £405m in 2014/15 to £396.6m in 2015/16.

The authority said that it is "actively investigating proposals for reducing costs to ensure that it can live within its budget for 2015/16".

It said that the proposed Northern Ireland Civil Service voluntary exit scheme "is central to the authority's cost reduction measures".

Authority staff have also been offered "unpaid leave for a continuous period of four weeks or more during the period from now until 31 March 2016".

There is no indication yet how many staff wish to take up the offer.

In a further move, the schools maintenance budget, which is administered by the Education Authority, has been cut from £23m to £14m.

The authority said this means that "maintenance work in schools will be limited to essential and urgent response work".

This will have a knock-on effect for the outside contractors who work in schools during the summer months preparing them for the new term in September.

Aidan Flynn of Maurice Flynn and Sons, who provide maintenance and construction services, has been told by the schools he normally works for during the summer months that they have "absolutely no budget and can't authorise any work".

"Financially, there could be as much as £4m of work that needs to be done over the summer in schools," he said.

"It's all sitting there waiting to be done, but no one can authorise it.

"Some of the schools won't even have essential maintenance carried out and some aren't fit to educate children in.

"I have 50 staff on protected notice as I have no work to send them to."

Mr Flynn said he didn't blame the Education Authority: "This is a problem for all our clients be it health, education or whoever," he said.

"They are given no indication from Stormont what their budget is and on that basis can't authorise work.

"Stormont needs to understand what an effect this is having.

"These are real people who are being affected and finding themselves out of work.

"It's a completely bleak situation."