Supply teaching costs have skyrocketed in Kirklees over the last year.

Figures just released in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request reveal that in 2013/14 schools spent £7,286,757 on stand-in teachers.

This represents a massive 62% increase on the previous year’s bill of £4.5million - a figure which prompted the council to pledge to reduce costs.

In 2012/13 Huddersfield’s highest spending schools were Honley High at £147,736, Almondbury High at £140,052, All Saints at £121,444 and Colne Valley (£120,052).

However, this time Colne Valley High School topped the Huddersfield list, shelling out a total of £262,000 on replacement cover. Second was Royds Hall at £181,469, with Newsome High having the third highest bill at £157,308. In all three cases this represents more than £200 per pupil.

Remarkably, Almondbury High School, now Almondbury Community School, has slashed its bill for supply teachers in the space of a year from £140,000 to just over £37,000. This makes it the second lowest spending secondary school in Huddersfield after Holmfirth High, where the bill was only £34,532.

Once again, across the borough of as a whole, it was the north Kirklees schools which emerged as some of the highest spenders.

In the previous year, three Dewsbury schools alone accounted for £750,000. They were Westborough High School, Earlsheaton Technology College and St John Fisher Catholic High School.

It was a similar picture this year with Westborough and St John Fisher spending £289,00 and £282,000 respectively, and Fairfield special school in Batley paying £209,000 for extra teachers.

Heading the list for the primary schools across Kirklees were Headlands Cof E School in Liversedge (£123,000), Dryclough Infants, Crosland Moor, (£107,000), Westmoor, Dewsbury Moor, (£104,000) and Heckmondwike (£102,000). Crow Lane and Fixby both spent over £90,000.

The costs per pupil are even higher at many of the borough’s special schools. Fairfield School has 124 pupils, and its supply bill amounts to almost £1,700 per child.

Longley School and Ravenshall School, Dewsbury, both had bills of £132,000, representing £900 and over £1,050 per pupil, respectively.

Of the £7.286 million spent on supply teachers, just over £5 million was spent with agencies and the remainder paid for teachers in the Kirklees Supply Service.

In July last year, a spokesman for Kirklees Council said that the supply teaching bill was reducing year on year.

Now a spokesman said: “Supply teachers are used for a number of reasons, including to cover staff vacancies, staff sickness, maternity leave and when staff are away from school on training courses.

“The council and local schools work closely together to minimise staff absence as much as this is possible.

“Importantly, schools take out insurance policies to cover the cost of recruiting supply teachers. The figures for the total cost of supply teaching do not include any income that schools might have received through insurance and which offset the overall cost.”