To have and have not

My eyes are hurting as a result of staring a five-page spreadsheet with rather small type which offers a snapshot of school finances in Cornwall. These are all state schools and I'm grateful to Cornwall Council for providing the data.

What is striking is the huge difference between the richest and the poorest. Truro's Archbishop Benson, for example, had more than £75,000 spare at the end of the year. By contrast Heamoor Community primary in Penzance was more than £60,000 overdrawn.

There are about 230 state primary schools in Cornwall and all of them enjoy a considerable degree of local management - indeed, the direction of travel of current government thinking is to increase the role of local management, and reduce further the role of the local authority.

So what does the data tell us? Clearly some schools are richer than others. But why is this? Does it mean that some local management is better than others?

Here are the top ten Cornish primary schools and their uncommitted revenue balances as for the 2009/20010 financial year. Remember, these are all state schools:

Archbishop Benson Church of England £75,428
Burraton Community £72,662
St Mewan £66,624
Newquay Junior £59,443
Treloweth £59,044
Bosvigo £55,013
Bishop Bronscombe £54,820
Penryn Junior £54,602
St Stephen churchtown £53,882
St Francis Church of England £51,493

By contrast, Heamoor is minus £60,655. Several schools reached the end of the year with only a few thousand to spare; Trannack community primary near Helston had only £332.

The average uncommitted revenue balance per school is about £19,000, although I counted 17 primary schools which ended the 2009/2010 financial year in debt.

The total for uncommitted reserves for Cornish primary schools in 2009/2010 was more than £4.4 million. That's money in the bank, hopefully earning interest. Did anyone ever say it was for educating children?