Education cuts will stretch department, says minister

ALL options are on the table for Education to cut £7.3m. from its budget in two years – and that includes closing schools and scrapping college grants, its minister has said.

And Deputy Robert Sillars (pictured) conceded that the task would stretch the department because it was also faced with the burden of vastly improving the delivery of education following the GCSE saga, which will include reviewing the future of the 11 plus.

He said the department was already on track to reach its goal of making £1.6m. of savings by the end of this year.But Deputy Sillars added that finding just under £6m. by the end of 2014 would be a tougher challenge for the department.

'It's a massive workload and a huge amount of expectation on the staff who are being pulled everywhere at the moment,' he said. 'In an ideal world we would love to be able to deliver an education solution and not have to have £7m.-worth of cuts. But we are where we are, unfortunately.'