To ask the Minister of Education what support (i) each management type of school; and (ii) youth services, will receive this winter to ensure they can afford to heat their buildings.

I can assure you that I fully recognise the challenges that rising heating and electricity costs present for our schools and youth services, and my officials seek regular updates from the Education Authority (EA) in relation to this. The most recent update estimated an additional pressure of £13.3m relating to rises in natural gas, heating oil and electricity costs in the 2022-23 financial year. This was after factoring in the anticipated impact of the UK government’s recent announcement of an Energy Bill Relief Scheme for the period October 2022 to March 2023. These, and other pressures have been communicated to the Department of Finance in anticipation of an agreed budget for 2022-23 in due course.

In addition to this, since August 2020, the EA has proactively sought to mitigate the impact of increasing utility and energy costs by engaging an independent energy advisor to provide advice on purchasing energy, tariff changes and hedging purchase prices for electricity and gas on behalf of our schools.

Notwithstanding all this, if any school or youth facility is facing financial difficultly, I would encourage them to contact the EA in the first instance.