Cabinet agrees to cut number of VECs [IrishTimes]
- Published: 13 October 2010
THE NUMBER of Vocational Education Committees (VECs) is to be cut from 33 to 16 under proposals agreed by the Cabinet yesterday.
The cut is even deeper than recommended by the McCarthy report last year. However, the move seems unlikely to deliver any major immediate savings as the Croke Park deal on the public service rules out any compulsory job losses.
The new multi-county VECs will break the link between the local authority and the county-based VEC. For the first time in 80 years, some individual counties will no longer have their own VECs.
The VEC sector has long been identified as a target for potential cost savings, with McCarthy proposing a cut to 22 VECs.
Spending in the vocational sector has increased from €731 million in 2005 to €949 million this year. Some 87 per cent of this is teachers’ pay.
At present, the 33 different VECs – 27 county, five city and one borough – have their own administrative structure. The VECs vary in size, some with more than 20 schools, while others may only have two or three schools in their area.
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