MORE than £600,000 of taxpayers' money has gone on converting schools to academies across Worcestershire, it has emerged.

Worcestershire County Council has come under criticism after the bill for allowing schools to free themselves from local authority control was revealed.

The county now has 59 academy and two free schools, with each conversion costing around £10,000.

Bosses say the costs go towards internal legal services, sorting out HR issues, the use of property services and the various other administrative tasks for each school provided by the council's in-house education support staff.

In recent years the Conservative leadership has encouraged more and more schools to free themselves of council control.

The £600,000 costs comes at a time when the authority is under huge financial pressure, and is looking to save around £25 million per year.

Councillor Paul Denham, County Hall's Labour spokesman for children and young people, said: "County council education staff used to spend more of their time supporting our own schools to ensure that all our children received the best education, and all the schools were held to account by them.

"Our Tory-led government has accelerated the transfer of schools to outside academies and free schools which has removed them from local accountability.

"As if that wasn’t enough, we now find that it is costing our local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds which they haven’t been told about."

He said taxpayers' cash has been "wasted on administration instead of better education for our children", and wants the conversions halted.

His stance has been rejected by the Tory leadership, which says it is keen for more schools to make the change.

The administration insists those with more autonomy are performing extremely well, saying it has helped make 89 per cent of county schools get to ratings of 'good' or better in the Ofsted ratings.

Councillor Liz Eyre, cabinet member with for children and families said: "It is the stated aim of the council to support conversion to academy status.

"We have also experienced a substantial improvement in Ofsted ratings, and improvement in standards, especially at Key Stage 4."