The Member of Parliament for Reading West and Mid Berkshire has paid tribute to the collection of schools that heavily disputed West Berkshire Council's decision to claw back funds. 

The clawback was due to a new proposal by the council regarding schools with 'excessive funds,' where extra funding will be returned to the local area to improve services for children and young people. 

The school business manager at The Downs School in Newbury Rebecca Brophy, 39, said that they had vital plans for this funding that was obtained largely through fundraising and parent donations. 

"We are not opposed to the claw back but we only just found out that it would take place within this year very recently before we had any time to set our plans in motion," she said.

"We were plodding on through the financial year and then we're told we're getting a clawback of £490,000. It has been so stressful for all of us here."

However, after much protest, West Berkshire Council announced last week that they would now only be taking funds from two schools. 

Olivia Bailey has been very heavily involved in working with the schools that were affected in Reading West and Mid Berkshire and she is very pleased with the outcome.

She said "I am pleased that West Berkshire Council have seen sense and reversed the decision to clawback funds from schools in Reading West and Mid Berkshire and that they have agreed to fund the works that are desperately needed at Springfields and Brookfields.

"I have contacted, The Downs, Springfields, and Brookfields and would like to pay tribute to the staff at the schools for the hard work they have undertaken in making their case.

"I am also pleased that West Berkshire have recognised that there needs to be a more open and trusting relationship with schools going forward. I will continue to work with schools and the council to ensure that pupils in Reading West and Mid Berkshire have the best possible opportunities."

Over the summer West Berkshire Council met with those schools thought to have an excessive amount of unspent and unallocated funding and who wanted to meet with councillors and senior officers from the Education team.

The purpose of these meetings was to review their finances, understand their concerns and listen to reasons as to why their schools should retain more funding than originally proposed.

As a result of these reviews, only two schools will be required to return some of their funding, one of which will now benefit from two key projects being covered by the Council’s capital funding.

£1.5M will be clawed back from Brookfields School from their £3.8 million reserves, but the Council will now put £600K into an accessibility project, within our Capital programme along with over £800K for new classrooms that can take 20 more children.

There will be a very small amount returned from Curridge school. Discussions are ongoing, but they will still have substantial reserves even after this money is repaid.