Wigan's Schools are sitting on a cool £9.5m

More than £9.5 million was unspent last year. Of this 28.6% – or £2,757, 295 – was banked by the borough's 20 secondary schools.

£6.1m was also kept by Wigan’s 104 local authority primary school figures were released to the Wigan Evening Post under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Despite the large amount of money that was retained by the schools, a few broke the rules over how much of their annual delegated budget they were actually allowed to keep in the bank.

The Government regulations allow primary schools to hold onto 5% of their annual budget at the end of each financial year. Secondary schools can bank 8% of their budget.

The rules are designed to prevent schools from holding onto the cash rather than investing in pupils' education, staff, resources and site maintenance. Although in some circumstances schools are allowed to save large amounts of cash to spent on particular schemes or projects.

Martin Hurd, branch secretary of the Wigan NUT, said: "As a general rule we don't approve of schools holding on to excessive amounts of their delegated balances unless it is ring-fenced for specific educational projects.

"However, I don't feel it is appropriate to comment on what amount is deemed excessive.

"Of course we want to protect jobs and we would be alarmed if schools with big balances were to start making staff redundant, although this is not happening here as far as we are aware."

Since 2007, local authorities have had the power to 'claw-back' excess balances.This money can then be redistributed as the education authority sees fit.

In the year ending March 2008, the first year that this power came into force, Wigan's education authority reclaimed £273,813 from 15 primary schools and one nursery.
That deduction left £7,804,925 which went unspent that year.
During the previous year, almost £6m was banked by Wigan's schools at the year end, while at the end of 2006 around £6m was carried over.


Coun Susan Loudon, Wigan Council's cabinet member for children and young people, said: "The local authority looks very carefully at school balances and tries to work with the governors and the head teachers to review their forward plans.

"Some balances will be high because a school has a plan to extend, or
provide additional facilities or is saving for a major refurbishment.

"We ask the schools to provide all their plans and if we feel that the balances exceed what the school needs, the Schools Forum (an independent group of head teachers and governors) can claw back that money and redistribute it to other schools.

"We will continue to keep a watching brief on these funds and ensure that money is spent, as it should be, on the education of our young people."

Sourced: Wigan Today