To ask the Minister of Education what impact his Department’s cut to the Early Years fund is likely to have in rural areas where organisations receive their sole, or majority, funding from the Early Years fund.

The Early Years Fund (EYF), (administered by Early Years – the Organisation for Young Children) was originally established in 2004 to help sustain certain early childhood services in areas of greatest need which were facing funding difficulties when Peace II funding ended. It has effectively remained as a “closed” Fund since then to only those groups that were in need of support at that time.

Groups currently supported by the Early Years Fund which are also offering funded pre-school places within the Pre-School Education Programme (PSEP) will continue to be funded through the PSEP. In accordance with the Programme for Government commitment to ensure that at least one year of pre-school is available to every family that wants it, I have allocated sufficient funding to Education and Library Boards to meet the projected need for pre-school places for children in their final pre-school year.

The Pre-School Advisory Groups will monitor the situation and take any necessary action to ensure that a place continues to be available for every child whose parent wants it.

The Executive’s Budget has been reduced by the Westminster Government by £1.5bn over the last five years. As a direct result of this reduction there is significantly reduced money to spend on frontline services such as Education. I have taken every action possible to protect Education funding and those frontline services within the Department of Education’s (DE) remit. However, it is simply impossible to protect everything.

I have ensured that budget is available in 2015/16 to enable all recipient groups to receive continued funding to the end of the current academic year i.e. 31 August 2015. I will continue to review my budget to establish if a fund can continue beyond that date. However any such fund will have to be open to all applicants, not just current recipients, and reflect the policy priorities of DE.

I am aware that many programmes have made a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities, however, it is essential to provide stability to the education budget and the education service moving forward and therefore maintaining all core services at current levels was simply not deliverable.