Kent County Council is to set up a company to sell education support services to schools and other councils partly to compensate for money being lost through government cuts.

Education chiefs believe Kent will be among the first to develop an in-house “for profit” trading company for school-related services.

The company will have its own separate board but will be overseen by the county council.

Education director Patrick Leeson said today the company would be expected to make money through providing a range of support services to schools in Kent and beyond.

Among them will be school improvement services to help with standards and adult education.

Mr Leeson said: “Schools outside Kent are showing increasing interest in using our services. The aim is to have the company launched by next January. We are setting up a company board and are recruiting a chief executive and there will be our own shareholder board.

“It will have a very clear commissioning specification and it is there to make money.”

The council already has an in-house company called EduKent with a more limited brief and mainly focused on schools in the county.

KCC has already drawn up a business case for the new company which concluded it would be “a financially viable alternative to continuing to deliver education services in their current form, which looks increasingly unsustainable if no action is taken”.

Although no financial targets or costs have been disclosed publicly, the county council says it will re-invest profits in supporting young people.

According to a report published in March, KCC says continuing with EduKent against a backdrop of government cuts would not provide any income because of its “limited potential to develop a more commercial approach.”