HEADTEACHERS in Oxfordshire are being warned to spend £3.4m they have stashed away or risk losing it.

Figures revealed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), showed schools had £12.9m left from the 2008/09 academic year budget.

Up to five per cent of each secondary school or eight per cent of a primary school’s annual grant can be kept from year to year to help with financial management.

But schools in Oxfordshire have saved £3.4m above the Government-approved level.

It is down from 5.9m the previous year.

In all, 93 schools were listed as having excess surpluses, including three secondary schools and 74 primaries.

Schools minister Vernon Coaker said: “While it is clearly sound financial management for schools to retain a small surplus from year to year, we expect revenue funding to be used to support the education and well-being of pupils in school now.

“Local authorities have the power to claw back excess, uncommitted surpluses and redistribute the proceeds back to local schools.”

The Cherwell School, Marston Ferry Road, Oxford, stashed 10.2 per cent of its revenue budget, a total of £851,795 and more than double the guideline proportion.

New headteacher Neal McGowan said: “Since taking up post on September 1 I have been working with governors and staff to tackle significant under-investment in buildings and infrastructure on both our sites.

“We had been hoping to get something from the local authority or DCSF but even if that money comes, it is years on and students have an entitlement to significant investment in buildings and infrastructure now.

“We have already started spending that money. It is going down rapidly week by week.”

He said most of the money had been set aside for a major revamp of the main teaching block, which was built in the 1960s and he said was “almost unfit for purpose”.

He added: “If I didn’t have this money I would be in a difficult situation because the buildings are in such dire need of upgrading.”

The other two secondary schools with more than five per cent of their revenue budget remaining were Gillotts School, Henley, which kept 6 per cent or £234,529, and Cheney School, Headington, which kept 5.2 per cent or £409,998.

Michael Waine, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for schools improvement, said: “Finance officers carried out detailed checks on all school budgets and where individual schools were unable to properly explain the need for retaining a surplus then the interest on this money was retained centrally.

“It was also made clear that both the surplus and the interest would be clawed back if not spent and redistributed to other schools.

“This year school budgets have again been closely checked.”