Baby books: Stormont funding cuts end free scheme

Northern Ireland is set to be the only part of the UK not to provide every baby with free books due to Stormont funding cuts.

The Department of Education (DE) has said it can no longer fund the Book Start Baby programme.

The programme, run by the Book Trust, provided more than 20,000 families in Northern Ireland with free books and reading advice every year.

The department had contributed £75,000 a year to the cost of Book Start Baby.

It is now facing an "extremely challenging" budget in 2023-24 that has already led to the end of DE funding for other schemes like free school meals holiday payments and counselling for primary school children.

Under the Book Start Baby scheme every family of a baby born in Northern Ireland received one or two books suitable for babies and toddlers.

They also received information about reading from their health visitor in each health trust.

Last year's books were called Zoom to the Moon and Tummy Time.

The Northern Ireland Director at Book Trust, Chris Eisenstadt, told BBC News NI that Book Start Baby aimed to encourage a love of reading in children from a young age.

"This is a very early years introduction to reading for pleasure and reading for connection," he said.

"They are delivered specifically through health visitors in Northern Ireland.

"By delivering it through that trusted relationship with the health visitor those families who need extra support are given extra support."

However, the department have written to Book Trust to say that they "will be unable to continue to fund" Book Start Baby in 2023-24.

Mr Eisenstadt said that the DE funding covered more than half of the annual cost of the scheme and Book Trust will no longer be able to afford to give every baby a book.

"We have a really good relationship with the department and it's very clear that this was not a decision that they took willingly or lightly," he said.

"Clearly they're just struggling to meet even their basic statutory requirements."

The Welsh government provides funding for Book Trust to run the scheme for babies in Wales, while the Arts Council provides money for Book Start Baby in England.

The Scottish Book Trust runs a similar Bookbug programme which is funded by the Scottish government.

"Babies in Northern Ireland, the most innocent of anybody, are going to be materially worse off than their counterparts in the rest of the UK," Mr Eisenstadt said.

"It's devastating and while I'm completely understanding of department, it's hard to think about how some of those families are going to make up that difference."

In a statement, a spokesperson for the department said

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: "In light of significant budgetary pressures, the Department has made the difficult decision not to continue funding the BookStart programme in 2023/24."

The spokesperson also said the department recognised how disappointing the decision would be and would like to acknowledge the "positive impact" the BookStart programme has had.

There have been warnings that Stormont departments are facing cuts of almost 10% when the 2023-24 budget for Northern Ireland is finally published.