evidence: A segregated and selective system is just one of many issues that the review is trying to tackle, though. Core school spending per pupil is lower in Northern Ireland than in England, Scotland and Wales, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found. [...] "In a nutshell, the problem is that we have less money to spend on public services here than elsewhere in the UK, on a comparable head-for-head basis," says O’Reilly, who knows the problem well, having run a Northern Ireland government department. Key factors here are that Northern Ireland has lower rates of property tax than other parts of the UK and, unlike other parts of the UK, does not levy specific water charges. The return of devolution "won’t address that fundamental problem" of underfunding of public services including education, warns O’Reilly.