To ask the Minister of Education what provisions her Department has in place to mitigate the rising global costs of materials necessary for essential school maintenance and repairs.

As part of the Term Service Contracts (TSCs) contract extensions, and as a mitigating action against the rising global costs of materials, TSC contractors have accepted the Education Authority’s (EA) offer of price uplifts to reflect the inflationary price increase in materials based on the Building Cost Information Service (BCIS) Measured Term Contract updating percentages relevant for each schedule of rates for the TSCs.

In addition, the EA have agreed certain prices in the price lists of the TSCs for specific maintenance elements of which the impact of inflation is higher than what could have been reasonably and diligently anticipated, and in excess of the adjustments following application of the relevant BCIS MTC updating percentages.