To ask the Minister of Education (i) for her assessment of pay and conditions for Education Welfare Officers as a comparison with social workers; and (ii) to detail her plans to close the current pay gap between Education Welfare Officers and social workers.

There is no single salary for a qualified social worker in Northern Ireland and it is very difficult to make direct comparisons of pay across different organisations as the requirements of the roles and the conditions of service will differ. Therefore there are always likely to be variations in pay across organisations and job roles.

In order to address this, job evaluation procedures are used within individual organisations to determine the appropriate grading of posts and the corresponding level of pay. The Education Authority (EA) has a well-established Job Evaluation procedure in place for this purpose. Any proposed solution to address these pay concerns will involve the evaluation and grading of roles in line with best practice.

The EA, as employer of Education Welfare Officers in Northern Ireland, agreed with NIPSA that they would progress an early resolution to the pay dispute via the Education Welfare Service Transformation Programme, which is tasked with reviewing and transforming the Service to meet the needs of young people. EA management are continuing to engage in negotiations with NIPSA on a regular basis and are committed to ensuring that Education Welfare Officers are fairly remunerated for their roles.