"Personally I would rather have seen the money spent on increasing DSMs and giving head teachers more latitude to improve their schools," said Mrs Bhatia.

The SBC budget for next year has been obliged to take on board these national commitments, with an extra £281,000 allocated to take on 12 additional primary teachers, thus increasing the number of P1-3 pupils in class sizes of 18 or under by 216 to 1,218 (from 27 per cent to 33 per cent). There will be no extra property costs as a result.

And, as revealed in TheSouthern in December, the council will also provide free school meals to all P1-3 pupils in 14 schools considered by in the region's most deprived areas at an extra cost to SBC of £139,000.

The selection of these primaries will be measured by the Borders Deprivation Index and revealed in March or April. Meanwhile, the price of a primary school meal will rise from by 15p to £1.80 from August this year.

Mrs Bhatia said: "Under normal economic circumstances, the provision of free school meals is a laudable aim ... but there will be middle-class families, who could certainly afford to pay, whose children attend the selected schools."

In a package of £1.4million of extra spending, there will also be £207,000 to enable all children in the region to receive two years of nursery or pre-school education before starting formal education at the age of five.

By far the biggest cost pressure next year will be meeting the costs of a recent non-domestic rates valuation of new schools. The resultant increase for the three new public private partnership (PPP) secondaries in Earlston, Duns and Eyemouth will alone account for an extra £487,000.

More than half the extra expenditure in education will be offset by efficiencies, notably the £393,000 that SBC estimates it will save with early retirement options for promoted-post teachers and those aged 55 or over as agreed in the controversial Transforming Children's Services review.

The council has stopped providing free fruit to schools, saving £100,000. Uptake has been low and waste high.

A further £34,000 will come out of community education with the removal of a vacant senior trainer post from the Borders Production Unit at Langlee in Galashiels.

Education remains by far SBC's biggest-spending department, its £96.3million accounting for 36 per cent of total council spending.

The administration believes services will remain relatively unscathed, despite an anticipated 2.4 per cent in teachers' salaries and non-wage inflation, such as utility bills, adding £817,000 to spending pressures in 2010-11.