Schools across Kent are holding close to £80million in reserves, nearly £5million more than they were last year, it has emerged.

Kent County Council is now asking its 594 schools to explain why they are holding back money and if it is not satisfied with their spending plans, education chiefs could move to claw back some and hand it to schools that are less well-off.

Figures show the money held back by schools rose by £4.9million in 2007-2008 to £79.4million.

The amounts being held by individual schools has not been disclosed but it is understood there are a number of schools whose reserves total hundreds of thousands of pounds and, among them, one which has £1million saved. Others have close to no spare cash.

The situation has been descibed as scandalous by the opposition Labour group at County Hall.

County councillors were told at the start of the year there were about 20 schools with “particularly high reserves”. But education chiefs also identified that while about 230 of its 594 primary and secondary schools were within their permitted limits, they had no plans for using those reserves.

Cllr Chris Wells (Con), Kent County Council’s cabinet member for education, accepted there could be “lots of reasons” why schools were holding back money. But he stressed KCC was required by government under a three-year pilot project to investigate if too much was being held back.

“We are required by the Government to ask schools to explain why they are holding back this level of reserves and that process is now happening. We will be asking them to justify what they have. At the end of the day, the money is there to be spent on children and if schools are not spending it, there are questions to be asked,” he said.

Schools have until the end of this month to explain their level of reserves to the education authority.

The high level of reserves being held back drew sharp criticism from KCC’s opposition Labour group. Cllr Christine Angell said:

“It is quite scandalous when many schools are failing Kent students. Added value cannot be costed, but the funding for it certainly can. Schools need to spend their money on education and training not putting money in their back pocket for a rainy day.”

She added it was wrong for some schools to hold back money for unspecified projects while others were struggling to find money to maintain old buildings.

“It is almost a question of naming and shaming, as it is quite criminal not to spend money on our children's education."