Schools in Carmarthenshire have posted a remarkable £7.2 million surplus after being £2 million in deficit the previous year.
But the council’s head of education, Aneirin Thomas, warned a committee that this turnaround came with a “significant health warning”.
Mr Thomas and his officer colleague Susannah Nolan explained that an influx of Welsh Government grants, combined with savings made by schools while they were closed during the Covic pandemic, masked underlying and continuing budget pressures.
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They said some schools had made genuine financial improvements but that others had used the extra Welsh Government grants to pay for core teaching.
Addressing the council’s governance and audit committee, Mr Thomas said: “There are still significant challenges we face in terms of our delegated (school) budgets.”
There were 52 schools in the red and 58 in the black at the end of 2019-20. This year there were 28 in the red and 82 in the black.
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