The principal of Budmouth College says he is ‘disappointed’ that Dorset Council refused to pay up to £600,000 to support the Weymouth senior school's restructuring costs.

And he stressed how the restructuring is a separate issue to the academy plan.

Dorset councillors decided not to financially back the costs associated with redundancy payments at a cabinet meeting until more information was known.

Councillors also spoke of concerns about the forthcoming academy takeover.

College principal David Herbert said: “It is obviously disappointing that the proposal to support the restructuring of our support staff was rejected by cabinet members on Tuesday. Lowering the cost of our staffing budget is important and we have already made financial savings on our leadership and teaching staffing. The figure of £600,000 for potential redundancy payments is not one that has been provided by the college, especially since the consultation process on the proposed restructure is still ongoing. That figure would not be known until the process has ended.”

Mr Herbert also hit back saying the college’s proposed restructure is a separate issue to its academisation which shouldn’t be unfairly mixed.

He said: “The two things are very separate. The college needs to lower its overall staffing costs and this proposal would be no different if we were remaining as a local authority school or becoming an academy, be it with Aspirations or any other trust. I hope that this will be reconsidered in the future.”

Andrew Gostelow, director of the Aspirations Academy Trust, said: “As we have said previously, we are delighted to have been selected to take on Budmouth College as an Aspirations Academy. We have a proven record of success in delivering high quality state funded education.

"There appears to be a real misunderstanding by some councillors of academisation. We are funded by the state purely to provide free education for young people. We are a not for profit charitable organisation. For the past five or six months we have been supporting the excellent new headteacher, David Herbert, to improve the quality of teaching and learning at Budmouth College. We are busy helping him put the structures and systems required to improve the quality of education at the school."

Mr Gostelow added: "Last year the school was 47th out of 55 similar schools nationally for its GCSE progress 8 score. We believe that this is unacceptable. As we have proven with all our mainstream schools, which inspected by Ofsted as Aspirations Academies are judged to be good or outstanding, we have the support systems required to deliver high quality education at Budmouth College. We are already training staff at the academy and we very much look forward to a positive future for the school.

"We are discussing the financial issues the school has, following many years of financial difficulties, with the Dorset local authority trying to help them to find a solution before Budmouth joins our Trust. Regardless of academisation the college needs significant financial input."

The college is due to be taken over by the Aspirations Academy Trust in September.