Tick here for the Cornish Jedi option

If you get the chance, do listen to BBC Radio Cornwall just after 7am on Monday. We hope to interview someone from the Office for National Statistics about the launch of a new campaign to raise awareness of Census Day on 27th March.

I anticipate a few questions about the controversial decision not to include a "tick box" for those who wish to describe themselves as Cornish. In 2001, at the last census, about 34,000 described themselves as Cornish even without a tick box (I think most statisticians would accept that including a tick box for any particular option makes it easier to select.)

In the same census, of course, more than 390,000 people across the UK described their ethnic or religious background as "Jedi" - and I suspect that not all of them were necessarily fans of the Star Wars movies. There was no tick box for Jedis, either.

Whose money is it?

The 2009/2010 spreadsheet detailing the finances of Cornwall's schools offers a few more nuggets: nearly one in six Cornish secondary schools ended that financial year in debt, yet secondary headteachers seem better able to spend their revenues than their colleagues in primary schools.

The total resources available to Cornwall's secondary schools that year was nearly £178 million. Their total uncommitted revenue balance at year end was only £2.1 million. In contrast, Cornish primary schools had less money available (£160 million) yet trousered an impressive £4.4 million (more than enough to build a new school in St Tudy.)

I've spent an interesting couple of days trying - and mostly failing - to get primary headteachers to talk about this. The argument that the money is needed for specific projects does not bear scrutiny. If you include the figure for committed revenue balances (an extra £8.8 million) you see that they actually reached the end of the year with more than £13 million in the bank.

I accept that it is comforting to go into a new financial year able to deal flexibly with unforseen staffing issues and repair things promptly when they break or wear out. But at what point does "prudent saving" become simply "saving for a rainy day" - which might or might not ever come?

It is now 23 years since Margaret Thatcher's government introduced Local Management of Schools, snipping the purse strings of the elected local councils and promoting headteachers to the role of mini chief executives.

I'm afaid I rather annoyed one primary school headteacher this week when I questioned his use of the phrase "we're running a business." While I don't dispute that schools need to be run in a business-like way, state schools are not required to return a financial profit on our investment. They are merely required to educate our children.

To have and have not

My eyes are hurting as a result of staring a five-page spreadsheet with rather small type which offers a snapshot of school finances in Cornwall. These are all state schools and I'm grateful to Cornwall Council for providing the data.

What is striking is the huge difference between the richest and the poorest. Truro's Archbishop Benson, for example, had more than £75,000 spare at the end of the year. By contrast Heamoor Community primary in Penzance was more than £60,000 overdrawn.

There are about 230 state primary schools in Cornwall and all of them enjoy a considerable degree of local management - indeed, the direction of travel of current government thinking is to increase the role of local management, and reduce further the role of the local authority.

So what does the data tell us? Clearly some schools are richer than others. But why is this? Does it mean that some local management is better than others?

Here are the top ten Cornish primary schools and their uncommitted revenue balances as for the 2009/20010 financial year. Remember, these are all state schools:

Archbishop Benson Church of England £75,428
Burraton Community £72,662
St Mewan £66,624
Newquay Junior £59,443
Treloweth £59,044
Bosvigo £55,013
Bishop Bronscombe £54,820
Penryn Junior £54,602
St Stephen churchtown £53,882
St Francis Church of England £51,493

By contrast, Heamoor is minus £60,655. Several schools reached the end of the year with only a few thousand to spare; Trannack community primary near Helston had only £332.

The average uncommitted revenue balance per school is about £19,000, although I counted 17 primary schools which ended the 2009/2010 financial year in debt.

The total for uncommitted reserves for Cornish primary schools in 2009/2010 was more than £4.4 million. That's money in the bank, hopefully earning interest. Did anyone ever say it was for educating children?

Second home voters - don't hold your breath

My thanks to St Ives MP Andrew George for letting me see this letter from Cabinet Office minister Mark Harper, which appears to be the government's reply to the "important and urgent" letter sent by Cornwall Council, eventually, in November. "I will give this matter further consideration," says Mr Harper. What odds of reform before the 2015 general election?

A little learning is a dangerous thing

Enjoying a bit of sport with Cornwall Council's transparency spreadsheet, trying to identify what beanos executive training courses we've been paying for. In November, for example, we forked out £9,356.91 to Caret Ltd. When I asked the council why, this was the response:

"The £9,500 paid to Caret Ltd relates to training and development provided to the panel of elected Members set up by the former Implementation Executive to carry out a formal appraisal into the performance of the Chief Executive of the Council. Appraisals are a mandatory part of the Council's performance management process, with all members of staff taking part in an annual review of their performance to ensure they are meeting the targets set for them and to identify their development needs. In the case of the Chief Executive the appraisal is carried out by a panel of Members. As this was the first performance appraisal carried out by Members of the new unitary council, it was agreed to enlist the services of an external organisation which specialises in this area of work. The work carried out by Caret Ltd included carrying out interviews with representatives of partner organisations outside the Council to gain an objective view of the leadership of the Chief Executive , as well as providing specialist training for members of the panel."

The spreadsheet tells us we also spent £1,500 at the University of Paisley and £848.30 for the White Duck Coaching Company.

Bewnans Kernow

Congratulations to the internet television setup myCornwall.tv for covering the Bewnans Kernow conference at County Hall - enabling me to watch and listen to proceedings without a 60-mile round-trip. The webcasting equipment appears to be that used by Cornwall Council - is this the first time it's been used by an outside, commercial organisation?

It looks as if there are about 70 people there and most of the talk so far has been about tourism, with general agreement that using the words "Cornwall" and "Cornish" are useful marketing tricks. Who'd have thought it!

Bert Biscoe has just suggested that within the next 20 years he would prefer to see a shift towards use of the word "Kernow" instead. Kevin Lavery, sitting next to him, has encouraged this conference but isn't smiling or nodding so it's hard to tell what he thinks of this idea. Incidentally, Kevin appears to be wearing a tie-less floral shirt that would have been very fashionable in 1976 (the reason I know this is that I still have mine, too.)

Time for coffee.

Why Doris's name is missing

More than 90 senior Liberal Democrat councillors wrote to the Times to complain about the cuts. But the leader of Cornwall's Lib Dem council group, Doris Ansari, was not among them. Why not? You might reasonably expect the leader of an Opposition group to join the protest. Doris says she would have signed up, but missed the deadline because she didn't read her emails in time. Here's her contribution to BBC Radio Cornwall yesterday.