This release provides an analysis of financial reserves held by schools in Wales at 31 March 2008.

The key points from the latest release are:

• The overall level of reserves within schools in Wales was £76 million at the end of March 2008, the equivalent of £165 per pupil. This is an increase of 12% over the previous year.  Reserves in primary schools accounted for £47 million or 62% of the total.
• The level of reserves as a percentage of delegated schools expenditure was on average 4.3%.  This is an increase of 0.3 percentage points on the previous year.
• Isle of Anglesey had the highest level of reserves as a percentage of delegated schools expenditure at 8.6%.  Monmouthshire recorded the lowest percentage with 2.4%.
• 2 nursery schools, 155 primary schools, 47 secondary schools and 5 special schools in Wales had negative reserves (i.e. deficits) totalling £8 million at the end of March 2008.  The remaining 1,628 schools had positive reserves at the end of March 2008; 376 of which had reserves in excess of 10% of their total delegated expenditure.