Education chiefs say they will focus on maintaining frontline services as the department faces a £1.1m cut in its budget.
On the face of it, the Department of Education and Children will see its budget for 2015/16 rise by £0.3m to £90.5m.
But after taking into account an increase of £1.4m for the department’s capital loan charges, the bottom line is that the DEC budget has been reduced by £1.1m.
Treasury Minister Eddie Teare announced in his Budget last week that in order to replenish the much-depleted capital fund, government departments will start paying interest again on their loan charges from April, initially at a rate of 1 per cent but rising to 2 per cent from 2017-18.
The DEC said the £1.1m reduction has been met through a range of savings, including restructuring of the department’s support and administrative functions.
Transfers to other departments to provide an expanded range of shared services, including estates management and catering, account for £0.2m of the reduction.
The remaining £0.9m has been saved as a result of students making the universal contribution to their higher education tuition fees, which was agreed by Tynwald in 2013. Changes to student fees support have now achieved a saving of £3.8m a year.
Education Minister Tim Crookall MHK said: ‘The department has been proactive in meeting the cost-saving targets it has faced in recent years. Since 2010, it has reduced expenditure by over £4m and has absorbed cost increases amounting to over £7.7m.’
Mr Crookall said the DEC has secured funding to support the introduction of the International GCSE in its secondary schools and Isle of Man College.
The Budget includes £6m towards the construction of a new £9m Henry Bloom Noble Primary School on the old Noble’s site.
DEC was apparently one of the few winners in the Budget, the others being DEFA with a £0.2m increase and Treasury up £3.6m - the latter including £8.2m for a new central contingency fund.