A DEPARTMENT of Education advisory group has recommended a system of grants to second-level schools to allow them to pay for their own caretaker and secretarial services.
In a draft report last month the steering group on the funding of second-level schools said that all such schools should receive a grant sufficient to pay for the equivalent of a half-time secretary and a full-time caretaker.
Supplementary per capita grants should be provided to schools with more than 150 students for secretarial services, and with more than 350 students for caretaker services.
According to a rough estimate from a technical working group, the proposed changes would lead to the equivalent of nearly 800 new full-time posts - 305 secretarial and 477 caretaker posts - at an annual cost of £10.3 million.
Under the present system, second-level schools are allocated an average of 0.81 secretaries and 0.69 caretakers. The proposed changes would increase this to the equivalent of 1.21 secretaries and 1.32 caretakers.
Under the group's proposals, the schools themselves should be free to decide how they spend the funding on the two services, and also should be allowed to transfer savings they make in these areas to other areas.
The amount of grant paid should be determined by reference to the wage scales for equivalent staff in community and comprehensive and vocational schools.
Until now, secretaries and caretakers have been funded in different ways in different sectors: by a mixture of full salary grants from the Department and per capita grants based on pupil numbers in voluntary secondary schools; by a sliding scale of Department-funded salaries dependent on school size in community and comprehensive schools; and by the Department - within limits fixed by the Department of Finance and at the discretion of the VECs - in the vocational sector.
This has led to a range of anomalies and disparities between and within the different sectors, and has been the subject of longstanding complaints from both teacher unions and school management bodies.
The report says the nearly 2,000 part-time school workers from the FAS-run Community Employment Scheme, who provide "a significant input into non-teacher support for second-level schools" worth £13 million annually, "distort downwards the true cost of school administration". Many people taking advantage of the CES are long-term unemployed.
The report warns that because of economic growth and falling unemployment there may be some doubt as to whether the contribution of the CES to school administration can continue at present levels.