A drive to transform schools into academies has cost Birmingham City Council £100,000 as its staff deal with applications, the authority’s education chief has revealed.

Coun Les Lawrence, cabinet member for children, young people and families, said council staff were “working flat out” to deal with applications from city schools wishing to leave local authority control.

The four schools that have either moved to “convertor academy” status are Bartley Green Technology College, Lordswood Girls School, Harborne, Kings Norton Girls School and Ninestiles School in Acocks Green.

A further 10 schools have applied to convert to academy status, including Stockland Green Technology College.

Coun Lawrence ordered a “financial audit” in February to determine exactly how much is being spent by the authority on handling applications.

He said a team of 17 staff were dealing with legal and HR matters concerning academy applications “in addition” to their normal workload.

“Staff are working flat out,” said Coun Lawrence, who has been a vocal critic of Education Secretary Michael Gove’s push for greater numbers of academies.

“Within the directorate we have an ad-hoc team which has previously been working on the traditional academy applications, and they have in part taken on the responsibilty for co-ordinating the applications from those schools who want to become convertor academies.

“This is in addition to their other work and has never been funded, so its a pressure on the core local authority budget in excess of six figures.

“In a sense, the secretary of state is taking money off the local authority to help fund the convertor academies process at the same time as passing on front-loaded reductions to the local authority.