A RECOVERY plan is in place at Chepstow School to try and claw back some of its predicted £352,000 deficit at the end of this year, Monmouthshire's cabinet member for education has confirmed.

The school, which is in the midst of a four-year recovery plan, has the largest deficit of any school in Monmouthshire, currently standing at around £200,000, but predicted to deepen to £352,151 by the end of the 2014/15 academic year.

Chairman of governors Craig Bridgeman said head teacher Claire Price was appointed in 2012 amid reduced funding, falling pupil numbers and less than average results, but that Estyn's assessment soon improved, as did pupil numbers.

However, redundancies and a HR process involving a former senior member of staff cost the school £200,000, as well as an annual staff pay increase of £100,000 which had to be paid from the school budget.

"Clearly, without (this) the school would be targeting a balanced budget," he said.

The current deficit is a five per cent negative difference against the total budget, he said, namely income of £4.67 million versus expenditure of £4.88 million.

"We are awaiting a meeting with the local education authority to discuss our future strategy," he said. "Pupils numbers are healthy and represent further growth trends."

School governor Cllr Peter Farley, member for Chepstow, said he was "very comfortable" that the school is managing the situation.

Cabinet member for education, Cllr Liz Hacket-Pain, said an intervention plan involving herself, chief education officer Sarah McGuinness and the council would take place with Chepstow School, and a recovery plan was underway, in which the school must show it has the ability to put the plan into action.

When asked about a line in the report stating that the deficit "remains a risk to the council", Cllr Hacket-Pain said: "You have to look at the overall budget of a secondary school which is millions. The (financial) aim is to get back in the black.

"It isn't something that happens and the authority says 'oh dear what can we do about it', all budgets are monitored all the time and things like this aren't a surprise.

"Sometimes you can't help it for whatever reason and that's accepted in the authority because there are reasons."

The next largest school deficit in Monmouthshire is Caldicot's Castle Park Primary School with £97,998, according to reports which went before the council's education scrutiny panel last week.

Some schools hold large surpluses, such as Abergavenny's King Henry VIII with £114,518 in the bank, although this is predicted to turn into a £72,742 deficit by the end of the academic year.

Dewstow Primary School has £106,113 in surplus, while Monmouth Comprehensive has the highest surplus of £130,975.

Savings have been made at some schools by employing "lower scale staff", a phrase which refers to their pay, not to their teaching ability, insisted Cllr Hacket-Pain.

"If you had a head teacher retiring at the top of the pay scale, and you then recruit someone who may be a deputy head teacher who is stepping up, you can imagine a difference between the scales," she said. "No one is saying go out and get cheap staff.

"In a natural process, you replace staff who have been teaching for a very long time with newly qualified staff. In a secondary school where perhaps 10 per cent of staff may be right at the top scale, if all of those retire at the same time, your wage bill could come down dramatically."

Chairwoman of the education scrutiny panel Cllr Penny Jones, member for Raglan, said the subject of school budgets was only "touched upon" at their meeting last week but would "absolutely be the subject of a future meeting".