Schools budget strategy ‘working’, but at what cost to pupils?

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

The financial strategy to bring down school budget deficits is working, a councillor believes, but another senior councillor wants to know at what cost to the quality of education in Powys schools.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet on Tuesday, senior councillors received the school budget plans for this year, which were given to the council on May 1.

The report included details on school finances as they stood at the end of March.

Schools this year will receive a total of £93.9 million out of the council’s overall budget of £365.77 million.

This includes a £7.8 million injection which now means that schools delegated budget is now “fully funded” under the formula used.

This report says that in total at the end of March schools posted a £1.08 million cumulative deficit – which is projected to be a £6.77 million cumulative deficit by the end of March 2028.

Portfolio Holder for Finance, Cllr David Thomas (Labour), said: “There is a tendency to concentrate on what’s bad and not good in the report.

“The important point to recognise is that the strategy the service put in place to address the financial issues that we have experienced within education is beginning to show positive results – the heart of it was to get in year balanced budgets and then tackle the outstanding deficit.

“We still have problems with regards to some schools with historic deficits but I’m sure the teams we have working with them will show results.”

The Learning and Skills scrutiny committee had looked at the report last Friday, and they had expressed concerns on a number of areas.

Comments from Committee Chair, Cllr Gwynfor Thomas (Conservative), were read out to cabinet, where he said: “The overall position gives cause for concern and the projections moving forward cannot continue at these levels as they demonstrate a significant risk to the authority.

“We are keen to seek work progress to understand the effect of budgets impact on the standards, morale and curriculum.

“It is a delicate balance and during our confidential session with a secondary school it was clear to see the difficulty the school was having to achieve in year balances.”

Cabinet went on to note and accept the report.