A £7.4 million funding injection planned as part of next year’s budget is an “apology” to schools in the county, senior Conservatives have said.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Cabinet, on Tuesday, December 17 the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet received a report outlining the need to pump more money into schools or else they will collapse financially.

Ahead of the decision, Conservative group leader Cllr Aled Davies in his guise as chairman of the council’s Finance Panel and fellow Tory, Cllr Gwynfor Thomas, the chairman of the Learning and Skills scrutiny committee, had their say on the proposal.

Much of their discussion revolved around the schools’ delegated reserve, which stood at £9 million on April 1, 2022, and had fallen to £900,000 by the end of March 2024.

This reserve is the money that has been squirrelled away by individual schools over the years for use in emergencies. Many Powys schools have no reserve at all.

Cllr Davies said that it was “quite unusual to see” the report being made public before Christmas when the rest of the budget proposals and documents will be published in January.

Cllr Davies said: “Clearly in the last two budget rounds I warned about not fully funding the delegated (schools’) budget and the impact that would have on the teachers and pupils.

“As it stands now it just adds to the budget gap which will have to be closed before agreement in February, and that would mean cuts to other services.”

However, he believed the funding injection is “the right thing to do”.

Cllr Davies claimed that the “abrupt” emptying of the schools’ delegated reserve which was used to deal with the high energy bills due to the cost of living crisis could have been done “slowly over a much longer term”.

Cllr Davies said: “I don’t want to say I told you so, but basically this paper is an apology to schools.

“It says as a council we got it wrong.

“I’m pleased the decision is being made but it’s not the end of the track.”

He pointed out that despite the extra money, it is still predicted that schools will be in a deficit of £3.8 million, rising to £5.3 million by the end of March 2027.

“Resources will still need to be allocated to schools to deal with this,” said Cllr Davies.

Cllr Thomas then had his say.

He said: “It’s really welcome, but it saddens me.

“As a scrutiny committee we worked hard on this in two budget rounds and everything that’s said in this paper is what we highlighted.”

Cllr Thomas said that he was disappointed that the report had gone to cabinet before scrutiny committee as he believed the members of his committee would have given this proposal a “rough ride”.

Cllr Thomas: “You had a letter from headteachers back in October 2023 highlighting some of the things they could not fund.”

He pointed out that the £9 million in school reserves was not shared out “equally”.

Finance portfolio holder, Labour’s Cllr David Thomas responded to the criticism and defended the decision to ask schools to use their reserves during the cost of living crisis.

Cllr Thomas said: “I don’t have the comfort of looking at education in isolation. I have to look at the big picture of the whole council.

“There are other services that our vulnerable residents rely on.

“It was the right decision to use the £9 million reserve in education because the general reserve that is supposed to sustain the rest of the council is only sitting at £10 million.

“So, we couldn’t use that.”

Cabinet then went to a vote and agreed the funding injection - which will be put forward as part of next year’s budget proposal which will need to be agreed at a full council meeting towards the end of February.