To ask the Minister of Education to detail any actions he is taking to support schools that are experiencing catering job vacancies.

The Education Authority (EA) has been targeting its resources in order to recruit staff to fill catering vacancies. The actions include the use of social media, school platforms, roadshow recruitment days and the Job page of the EA website. The EA has also put in place a small mobile catering team to minimise disruption where possible.

In addition, we have recently agreed a Pay and Grading review for education sector support staff. This agreement will be implemented by the EA in the next few months and will increase the rates of pay available for roles within the catering service. It is hoped that this will help address some of the recruitment and retention issues currently being faced by the EA, many of which are also being experienced across the wider catering and hospitality sectors.