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Guernsey's Education Department hopes to hand back up to £1m of its budget for this year to the island's treasury.

Education Minister Carol Steere said the savings would come from a re-organisation of back office functions not cuts in teaching staff or services.

She said she wanted to make it quite clear that the self-imposed target was definitely a one-off deal.

Deputy Steere said her department did not want to make any moves that may affect the standard of education.

She said the department would be able to achieve the saving this year, but looking ahead she did not want to do anything that would impact on the quality and delivery of education by agreeing to a permanent budget reduction.

Deputy Steere said one of the department's future aspirations was to introduce nursery education, which would cost about £1.6m.

She said: "[That's] money that I think would be very, very well spent and if you get young children early enough you reap the benefits later on and that is a spend to save initiative."