SCHOOLS across Merseyside and Cheshire racked up a £100m annual budget surplus, the Daily Post can reveal.

Schools were last night warned they face having money clawed back with figures showing £28.4m – more than a quarter of the 2007/8 surplus balances – was squirrelled away contrary to government guidelines.

The expectation is that, once things like timetabled building projects and capital costs are calculated, primary and special schools should have no more than 8% of their yearly budgets remaining – it is 5% for high schools.

Last night, union chiefs attacked schools choosing to hide away money for a rainy day, rather than spend it as intended on current projects.

Peter Glover, spokesman for the NUT Liverpool, called for councils to centrally control budgets to remove the temptation from the minority of “selfish heads” consistently sitting on money meant for their current crop of pupils.

Last night, council chiefs confirmed they will continue to claw back hoarded money and redistribute it back into education.

Cllr Peter Dowd, cabinet member for education for Sefton council, which is in the middle of a review of its schools’ balances, said: “For more than a decade, schools have maintained balances which are over and above other organisations in the public sector.”

And he dismissed suggestions by the Association for School and College Leaders that the credit crunch may be behind schools’ over-zealous prudence.