Business Plan 2024-2025

The Annual EA Business Plan sets out the priorities and actions for the organisation for the financial year 2024-25.

Chief Executive's Foreword

This plan outlines our short-term priorities and objectives for the next 12 months and the actions we will take to seek to meet the challenges we face. There is a strong focus on seeking to meet the learning needs of our children and young people and enhancing and transforming the services we provide.

As is the case for all public services, the education sector continues to face many challenges not least unprecedented financial challenges, meaning that there are many areas where increasing demand on services outstrips the resources available.

Our talented, committed and experienced staff right across the education sector continue to work to navigate such challenges on a daily basis, finding innovative solutions while always keeping children at the very heart of everything they do.

Whilst we continue to press for a sustainable funding model, it is also essential, in the context of very constrained resources, that we continue to prioritise those areas which make the biggest difference for schools, parents/carers and ultimately children and young people.

This will also require continued innovation and transformation of services. The Annual Business Plan 2024-25 provides a framework to drive forward our key priorities and our ambitious programme of service improvement.

Richard Pengelly - Chief Executive

Introduction

The EA is an Arm’s Length Body of the Department of Education, and is a delivery organisation with statutory responsibilities for ensuring that efficient and effective nursery, primary and secondary education services are available to meet the needs of children and young people; and for supporting the provision of efficient and effective youth services. We are the Managing Authority for controlled schools.

We support all our children and young people in their journey through education, from admission to pre-school, through to their transition into further education, training or employment.

To do so we seek to provide:

  • Excellent, inclusive educational opportunities for all;
  • Safe, reliable transport to and from school;
  • Tasty and nutritious school meals;
  • Fit for purpose school buildings, which promote wellbeing;
  • Technology solutions that facilitate learning.

The EA is an Arm’s Length Body of the Department of Education.

This Business Plan is developed within the broader context of strategic planning in Northern Ireland. The Programme for Government will set the broad strategic direction, with the Children and Young People Strategy underpinning its implications for children and young people. This is supported by other, more education specific strategies, and these inform DE’s priorities which are outlined in their draft five-year Corporate Plan 2023-28, Every CHILD.

Our vision is: To inspire, support and challenge all our children and young people to be the best that they can be.

Our Vision

Children and young people

  • Every child has a suitable educational placement;
  • Inclusive environments that foster resilience and support wellbeing;
  • Improved learning outcomes;

Processes

  • Data-driven decision-making;
  • Integrated and interoperable systems and services
  • Innovative approach to Service improvement.

People

  • A culture of leadership at all levels
  • Our people feel valued and supported;
  • Effective delivery of HR Services;
  • Staff empowered and encouraged to innovate;

Finance and Assurance

  • Optimal resource allocation within available budget;
  • High standards of accountability and governance;
  • Schools supported to manage their budgets effectively;

Quality of Service Delivery

  • Responsive to parents and schools and other service users
  • Service delivery shaped by service-user input

Children & Young People

We want all our children and young people to thrive throughout their school journey. We recognise the importance of providing each child with the right environment to support their needs and ambitions. Despite the significant challenges that we face, we will continue to prioritise improved outcomes for all our children and young people in everything we do.

Action Plan : Children & Young People

Objective Action Measurements
1.1 Every Child has a suitable educational placement

1.1a
We will aim to ensure that every child has a suitable school placement for September 2024/25 academic year and build on this for future years.

Number and percentage of children with SEN with a suitable school placement.

  1.1b
We will work with colleagues in the Department of Education on the End-to-End Review of Special Educational Needs to develop high-quality, cost-effective delivery models.
To be determined as part of concluding the review.
  1.1c We will implement the first year of Operational Plan 2 of the Strategic Area Plans 2022-27. Area Planning / Ministerial Priorities: ‘Stage of progress' for all Area Planning work streams.
1.2 Inclusive Environments that foster resilience and support wellbeing

1.2a
We will work with DE to deliver the Ministerial priority around pre-school provision.

Progress against programme milestones.

Number of settings standardising hours by September 2025.

  1.2b
We will deliver the Youth Service Funding Programme. 
Number of children and young people who have made progress against one or more Youth Service outcomes.
   1.2c
We will begin implementation of the Education Welfare Service Transformation Programme, subject to DE approval of the business case.
Progress against project plan.
  1.2d
We will plan, implement, monitor and evaluate the Peace Plus Shared Learning Together Programme.
Progress against programme milestones.
 1.3 Improved Learning Outcomes

1.3a
We will support teachers and other school-based staff through provision of a wide range of quality professional learning opportunities.

Number of development opportunities offered to non-teaching staff. Number of of development opportunities offered to Teaching staff. Number and percentage of participants who noted improved skills and competence/impact on professional practice*

Case Studies

  1.3b
We will work with colleagues in the Department of Education on the End-to-End Review of School Improvement, which will inform the shape and structure of any future delivery models.
To be determined as part of concluding the review.

*These metrics will be improved throughout the year, as the systems are developed to collect and collate information across the many services in the organisation which provide professional learning opportunities to school-based staff. 

Processes

The Landscape Review of the Education Authority 2022 highlighted areas of emerging service improvement and innovation across the EA. We recognise the need to build on this and to ensure we have the right processes and systems in place to support transformation and innovation in our schools and youth centres and in all the services that we deliver to children and young people.

Action Plan : Processes

Objective

Action Measurements
2.1 Data-driven decisions

2.1a We will build the Centre of Expertise for Data Insights and Analytics and implement and embed the EA Data Strategy.

Progress against milestones within the Data Strategy

Pilot Data Maturity Assessment

Case studies

  2.1b Through the EA One Data Council and the EA One TOM we will improve the quality of HR, payroll, finance and procurement reporting. Number of data quality reports
2.2 Integrated and interoperable systems and services

2.2a We will implement Year 3 of the EdIS Programme.  

Progress against key EdIS milestones

  2.2b We will deliver network and information systems supporting essential services, including the management and mitigation of cyber security risks.   Number of cyber security incidents
2.3 Innovative approach to service improvement

2.3a We will involve service users in all service transformation, taking a collaborative co-design approach.

Case studies on co-design

  2.3b We will deliver the Local Integrated Teams Project.  No. & % of children and young people who have received Stage 2 support and have shown improved outcomes at the end of the cycle of support

No. & % of children and young people who no longer require Stage 2 support after involvement with LITs

No. of requests for whole school support

No. & % of requests for whole-school support scheduled for delivery/delivered

People

Following an extensive workforce conversation with staff across the organisation, we recently published our People Plan 2024 -2029. Our staff have told us what is important to them, and the People Plan will deliver on those priorities. Our staff are our most important resource and it is through their passion and commitment that we will improve outcomes for children and young people. Key to this is recruiting the best people, getting them into post in a timely manner, supporting all our staff to develop their careers with us; challenging them to give their best, at all times and empowering them to lead from all levels.

Action Plan : People

Objective

Action Measurements
3.1 A culture of leadership at all levels       

3.1a We will put in place a decision-making framework that empowers staff at all levels.

Progress against project plan

  3.1b We will work in partnership with the Department of Education and key stakeholders to agree key priorities for workforce planning progression for the education sector. Progress against agreed milestones
3.2 Our people feel valued and supported

3.2a EA will address workforce challenges by working with NI Teachers' Council and other educational bodies to prioritise and progress the workforce review recommendations.

Number of recommendations completed, In train, Within Current Resource

Total number of recommendations that have moved from "In train" or "Within Current Resource" to "Completed" and have moved from "Within Current" resource to "In Train"

Progress against milestones

  3.2b We will implement Year 1 actions associated with the People Plan.

Progress against project plan

Staff absence

3.3 Effective delivery of HR Services

3.3a We will develop and submit a business case to DE for a Legacy Terms and Conditions Team.

Progress against project plan

  3.3b We will establish a helpdesk for all HR Services.

Percentage calls answered

Percentage calls resolved

3.4 Staff empowered and encouraged to innovate

3.4a We will adjust the risk appetite of the organisation to be less risk adverse. Number and % of EA Staff who would recommend EA as a place to work.

Finance & Assurance

We are operating in a challenging environment with increased demand for services and unprecedented financial pressures. We must strive to live within the budget available to us whilst maintaining high standards of accountability and governance. In this environment we must maximise the value for children and young people that we can deliver by optimising resource allocation and reducing inefficiencies.

Action Plan : Finance & Assurance

Objective

Action Measurements
4.1 Optimal resource allocation within available budget

4.1a We will strive to live within the budget allocated to us for 2024/25.

Final 2024/25 outturn.

  4.1b We will review the EA corporate estate in line with the agile working framework. Progress against programme plan.
  4.1c We will deliver year 1 of the Costed Establishment Project. Progress against project plan.
4.2 High standards of accountability and governance 4.2a We will target improving compliance in key areas

We will target areas of compliance linked to assurance framework, for example:

Percentage of expenditure compliant with Better Business Cases NI Percentage of statutory and mandatory training completed

4.3 Schools supported to manage their budgets effectively 4.3a We will develop proposals to establish a joint Education/Finance team to support schools to improve budget management, governance and accountability and to assist us in holding schools to account for overspends Progress against project plan

Quality of Service Delivery

Parents, school leaders and others have repeatedly told us that we are not meeting their expectations in our engagement with them. Anecdotal feedback suggests that they often feel that they are unable to contact the right person to answer their queries and that their views are not considered when designing service delivery. We need to establish a baseline for our service users’ satisfaction and use this to quickly improve our services, communication and engagement.

Action Plan : Quality of Service Delivery

Objective

Action Measurements
5.1 Responsive to parents and schools and other service users

5.1a We will establish a baseline for service user satisfaction in the EA.

Service-user Survey

  5.1b We will develop and implement a three year overarching Communications Strategy. Delivery of Communications Strategy
  5.1c We will improve the capability and capacity of EA to deliver services. Develop a new roadmap for improvement which builds on the recommendations presented in reviews such as Independent Review of Education and Landscape Review of EA. 
5.2 Service delivery shaped by service-user input

5.2a We will develop an Engagement Plan to provide a framework for effective and consistent engagement with our service users.

Delivery of the Engagement Plan

 

  5.2b We will further develop and formalise the EA NI School Leadership Forum. Progress against agreed milestones across each of the subgroups
Last updated: 29/10/2024