Whitehall's most senior education official has backed the one-in-four schools determined to retain ‘excessive' surpluses as a ‘very sensible thing to do' – even in the face of potential local authority clawbacks.
Making his final appearance before the public accounts committee on 28 November, outgoing Department for Education (DfE) permanent secretary, Sir David Bell, said the ‘doubly decentralised' funding system justified some schools' pursuit of a ‘counter intuitive direction' of balances.
