- Under current legislation, schools do not have to be fully integrated on day one of any transformation but it “must appear to the Department that if the school were to become … an integrated school, the school would be likely to provide integrated education.”
- Department of Education officials provided the Minister with reports outlining reasons for – and against – both applications.
- Those officials said that “on balance” those applications should proceed – but ultimately the Minister disagreed.
UPDATE – 23 October 2025: This is part of a three-article series. On 23 October 2025, each piece in the series was updated to reflect a High Court ruling supporting the decisions made by the Education Minister with regard to the applications discussed below. Please see the end of each article for more details.
The full judgement can be read online along with a summary judgement. Following this ruling, the Education Minister provided a written statement to the Assembly.]
In early January, the Education Minister Paul Givan announced his decision not to approve applications for integrated status made by two schools in North Down, Rathmore Primary School and Bangor Academy & Sixth Form College, despite support from parents of children at both schools.
These decisions received plenty of publicity. On 13 January, a week after they were announced, the decisions were the subject of a debate in the Assembly as a Question for Urgent Oral Answer.
That debate contained several claims that FactCheckNI examined over the course of three articles:
- The Minister said he is “legally prohibited” from approving integrated status “unless it is likely that the school will provide integrated education.”
- Alliance MLA Nick Mathison said an official report found that North Down has substantial unmet demand for Integrated Education.
- Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan said the Minister’s own officials believed the applications should be approved.
Our look at the first claim is here, while the second is here. This article focuses on the third and final one.
During the debate, Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan said:
“The Minister said that he was legally prohibited from granting integrated status to the two schools in Bangor. During the process of working towards that point, however, his officials believed that he should have granted them integrated status. Will the Minister explain why there has been such a divergence of opinion in his Department?”
RATING: ACCURATE.
While they would have been aware that their Minister would have the final say on these development proposals and could override their perspectives, Department of Education officials did recommend that the Minister should approve these two applications and, on that basis, this claim is supported by evidence.
- Reporting
Reports on Rathmore Primary School and Bangor Academy containing the analysis and recommendations of Department of Education officials were published on 8 January underneath the minister’s decisions. The final pages include the recommendations of the Area Planning Policy Team who had assessed the schools’ proposals. Regarding Bangor Academy, the officials said:
On balance, in the context of the statutory duty, current legislation and based on the evidence detailed above it is recommended that you:-
(i) Approve DP 727 that: –
“Bangor Academy and Sixth Form College will transform to Controlled Integrated Status with effect from 1 September 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter.”
The same wording was used in the recommendation that Rathmore Primary School’s development proposal (DP 728) should be approved.
- Process
The team’s reports on the two Bangor schools were sent to the Minister in September 2024. His announcement to deny the requests was dated 7 January 2025 (a delay of many months is quite common) and issued publicly on 8 January along with seven other ministerial decisions (another four followed the next day).
The officials considered how well the proposals currently met the criteria laid out in the Act, other relevant legislation, and concluded with a summary which includes sections outlining “reasons to not approve the proposal”, “reasons to approve the proposal” and their recommendations.
The officials noted that the schools did not (currently) meet the 1(a) criterion of “including reasonable numbers of both Protestant and Roman Catholic children or young persons”. They also noted that Departmental guidance suggests taking steps ahead of transformation to “start the process of cultural and operational change” that might improve the balance of students.
Neither Rathmore Primary School nor Bangor Academy had provided evidence of steps being taken, nor had their applications sufficiently detailed the steps they planned to take if their request for transformation to an integrated school was approved.
- Future change
DE’s guide to transformation – Integration Works – notes:
“To maintain the momentum of the Transformation Process during this period, before a formal decision is made on the Development Proposal, schools should start the process of cultural and operational change. However, legal changes such as reconstituting the Board of Governors must not happen until the Development Proposal is approved.” (emphasis added)
Nonetheless, paragraph 208 of the Bangor Academy report stated:
“It is therefore concluded, on balance, and by reference to the detail set out in the Transformation Action Plan (which is clearly timetabled and which logically identifies the key areas that the College needs to address) that [the school] is likely to meet the transformation criteria assessment.”
A school isn’t expected to be already operating in a fully integrated environment before making their application. Earlier in Bangor Academy’s report (paragraph 187), the officials stated:
“The 2022 Act does not set out a requirement that a school should/must be integrated at day one but must appear to the Department that, if the school were to become, or be established as, an integrated school, the school would be likely to provide integrated education.”
The phrase “would be likely to provide integrated education” is repeated many times throughout the report.
The officials state further that “the school [Bangor Academy] is ‘likely’ to provide ‘integrated education’ based on the current definition.”
The officials noted that there “has been a small increase to the number of people identifying as Catholic, […] a decrease in the number of people identifying at Protestant, [and] there appears to be a substantial increase in the number of people identifying as having no religion”. Elsewhere in their report (Bangor Academy paragraph 52) they note:
“However, there will always remain uncertainty regarding the extent to which the College’s pupil cohort may mirror the area in which it is located and from which its draws that cohort, as those who may have identified as Catholic or Protestant in the 2021 census, may have identified as ‘other’ on the school’s census data.” (emphasis added)
The shorter report assessing Rathmore Primary School’s proposal similarly notes (paragraph 8.45):
“Neither the Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 nor Integrated Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 stipulate a required or expected percentage in relation to religious balance but instead reference ‘reasonable numbers’. The Department does not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to what defines a ‘reasonable number’ and recognises that religious balance may vary depending on local area and that some pupils might choose or perceive themselves to have a shared or mixed identity. However, Article 92(6) of the 1989 Order now provides that “The Department shall not approve a proposal under this article in relation to a school unless it appears to the Department that, if a school were to become, or be established as a controlled integrated school, the school would be likely to provide integrated education” (as defined in Section 1 of the 2022 Act).”
- Officials’ position
The officials recommended that “on balance” the proposals should be approved. However, the timing and the final decision is not delegated to the officials, but rests with the Minister.
The Northern Ireland Executive Committee’s (March 2020) Guidance for Ministers in the Exercise of their Official Responsibilities (which sits alongside The Ministerial Code and Conduct of Executive Business) states in paragraph 9.3 that
Ministers will: give fair consideration and due weight to informed and impartial advice from civil servants, as well as to other considerations and advice, in reaching policy decisions
Again, while officials may recommend, it is only their Minister who can make the final decision.
- Minister’s view
Answering a written question from SDLP MLA Cara Hunter, the Minister said:
“The recommendations presented to me by officials in respect of both of these Development Proposals (DP) noted the ‘on balance’ nature of the decisions I was being invited to take …”
And on Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show (31 January) to explain coming to different conclusion from his officials, the Minister said:
“I looked at the report that they provided, and took a decision based upon the content within that. So … I think it is reasonable for me to conclude that a school that has less than 3% of a minority population, that hasn’t provided the evidence that that is likely to change, would be [sic] deemed to be an integrated school based upon the statutory legislative provisions that I’ve just highlighted to you that the Assembly voted upon.”
During the same radio discussion, the minister also noted his record on deciding on whether integrated school proposals should be approved:
“I take decisions on every single development proposal that comes to me, and on those issues, I have approved more schools that have wanted to transform to integrated status than I have refused.”
That statement is backed by the evidence of other ministerial decisions since the minister came to office.
- Official advice, ministerial decision
Ultimately, the officials and their Minister attached different weight to the “reasonable numbers of both Protestant and Roman Catholic children or young persons” criterion (just one of three criteria in the legislation which also include socio-economic disparities and differing abilities).
The Minister was unconvinced that the schools would meet the criteria, while the officials’ reports explained why it’s not necessary for a school to be “integrated at day one”, why the school census figures for students from a Catholic background might be depressed, and why they believed steps could be put in place that would allow the school to provide integrated education if given the go ahead to transform.
As we noted in the first of these related fact checks: officials advise, ministers decide.
Given that the officials recommended that the applications be approved, Mr Sheehan’s claim that “officials believed that he should have granted them integrated status” is accurate.
- CONCLUSION
This series of fact checks is an attempt to illuminate what was a complex debate about what appeared to be a straightforward decision by the Education Minister.
Hopefully this exploration of the three claims has illuminated the framework within which decisions to approve or deny requests from schools to become integrated.
Lots more background detail about the state of integrated education can be found in the Department of Education’s Strategy for Integrated Education in Northern Ireland that was produced as part of the introduction of the 2022 Act.
- UPDATE – 23 October 2025
Education Minister Paul Givan’s decisions were challenged in the High Court. These challenges have been dismissed, with the court refusing to allow leave to apply for judicial review in both cases.
On 15 October, the court asserted that the Minister was bound by the requirement of Article 92(6) of the 1989 Order and shall not approve a transformation proposal unless it appears to the Department that, if granted integrated status, the school would be likely to provide integrated education – meaning in particular the inclusion of reasonable numbers of both Protestant and Roman Catholic pupils. The ruling makes clear that what constitutes “reasonable numbers” in any application is for the Minister and Department to decide.
The full judgement can be read online along with a summary judgement. Following this ruling, the Education Minister provided a written statement to the Assembly.
