NI funding review goes on

Government in the North may have been suspended (or to put it another way, been well hung) but a key review of student funding is set to go ahead nevertheless.

The erstwhile Minister For Further Education and Training, Sean Farren, announced the review in one of his last acts as a minister. He said he had made it clear on his "first day in office that one of the key tasks facing me and my department was to promote wider access to higher and further education, especially for those people who were previously excluded. A review of student support arrangements is a central part of that task."

He said the review would be broad ranging and cover students in further and higher education, looking at fees, allowances, discretionary awards, access funds and other financial means of support.

Farren said that the review would pay close attention to developments in Britain. Scottish students do not pay fees, only a charge of £2,000 payable when they graduate and are earning a substantial amount of money. Farren described the Scottish situation as "an anomaly which needs to be addressed", but said he did not intend to predict the outcomes of the review "or even to speculate on what options might emerge".

Farren said the review would be "carried out regardless of whether we wil have to revert to direct rule or not". A spokesman for his department last week said the review was continuing unaffected as all the personnel involved would be drawn from the department. "The department is still here and still up and running," he said.

What is less clear is the issue of who will be around to receive the review, which should be ready this autumn. Whoever is in charge of the administration will get the report and act upon it, the spokesman said helpfully.

Meanwhile the response from student leaders in the North even before suspension was mixed. The president of Queen's students' union, John McAuley, said he would like to have heard a timetable for the reviews and recommendations to be implemented and an end to the surcharge for families of students in higher education.

Shane Whelehan, the convenor of USI-NUS, said that he was "delighted" that the review was taking place, but added: "Students' unions have been calling out for this review for over five years." Although they welcome this belated development, he said, they are concerned with "the limited remit of the review, which fails to consider the inter-relationship between social-security benefits and student maintenance and the failure to include representation from students, student-services staff and administrators from the area boards and student-loan company".

Wheehan also pointed out that the timing of the review meant that measures arising from it would not be ready for implementation until the 2001-02 academic year. "In addition, other changes which will benefit students in England and Wales will not be introduced in Northern Ireland this autumn and we are concerned that our members will be disenfranchised because of the delays in convening this review of student support."

After suspension, Whelehan was even more worried about Peter Mandelson's enhanced role. "If it comes down to a review being dictated by a friend of Tony Blair, we can't see it being in any way objective," he said.

In Scotland an independent chairman, Andrew Cubie, was put in charge and the whole process was made transparent.

"We fear the outcome here is not going to be a local solution - it will be a London solution to a local problem."