The average maintained school has seen its reserves jump by 61.3 per cent in two years, leaving the sector sitting on a pot worth almost £2.2 billion.
Official data suggests schools went into the recent cost-of-living squeeze with the healthiest balance sheets since current records began in 2016.
The average school had £178,500 in the bank at the end of the 2021-22 financial year in April, up from £160,486 a year earlier and £110,692 the previous year.
The sector’s combined net reserves across all local authority schools rose by 5 per cent annually to £2.18 billion, also the highest on record. The figure covers the total surpluses of schools in the black, minus the deficits of those in the red.
The Department for Education figures show a divide between primaries and secondaries however, and regional gaps too.
