Schools may have to cut 25 teachers each due to cash shortages, says union

Secondary schools may have to cut up to 25 teaching jobs each as a result of a budget crisis this summer.

An independent report into this year's spending on education, commissioned by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), showed that secondary schools were reporting shortfalls in their budgets of up to £750,000 ­ the equivalent of 25 teaching posts. In primary schools, the figure was £200,000.

The report, by John Atkins, an independent expert on school finance who has also done research for this Government and the previous Tory government, says rising costs have meant schools need at least an 8 per cent increase in their budgets to stand still this year ­ yet many authorities have been given as little as 3.2 per cent by the Government.

It reveals that only Hartlepool, out of 150 education authorities in England, has been able to raise spending by more than 8 per cent, having given schools an extra 9 per cent.

Doug McAvoy, the NUT's general secretary, accused ministers of "incompetence" yesterday because they had claimed that the Chancellor's Comprehensive Spending Review would give schools record increases this summer.

Mr McAvoy cited a section in Mr Atkins' report which said: "It seems that no one sketched out, even very roughly, what the impact of known increases in cost base would be on a typical school."

The findings will also fuel demands for industrial action in schools at this year's NUT conference, which opens in Harrogate today. Two emergency motions will be put to delegates by the union's executive. One backs strike action in areas where teachers are declared redundant because of a spending shortfall. The other warns that teachers will refuse to work with classroom assistants if those assistants have been hired to replace a qualified teacher because a school is struggling financially. That would include refusing to help them prepare lessons or mark work set by them.

The two resolutions will almost certainly receive unanimous backing from delegates, and other teachers' unions have already been asked to back strike action if redundancies occur. Mr McAvoy said: "We are not going to accept teacher redundancies and we're not going to accept increased workload. We will take action where we need to protect that."

One school facing a severe financial crisis is Whalley Range High School for Girls in Manchester, one of the most improved schools in the country, which may have to get rid of up to 20 staff because of a £600,000 budget shortfall. Dame Jean Else, the headteacher of the comprehensive whose former pupils include the former education secretary Estelle Morris, said yesterday: "If we had to do that, we wouldn't be functioning properly as a school."

The report by Mr Atkins revealed other desperate lengths to which schools are resorting to stay within their budgets.

One headteacher is planning to work a four-day week and take a 20 per cent pay cut to balance his books. "It remains to be seen whether he would not end up working the extra day, from home, for free," the report says.

Primary schools are considering mixed-age classes by combining lessons. The report says the difficulties facing schools are already threatening an agreement, signed by all the teachers' unions except the NUT, to reduce teachers' workload. A plan to transfer a list of 24 administrative tasks up until now undertaken by teachers to classroom assistants in September is under threat, it says. "Within two and a half months of the agreement being signed, the potential for its implementation has already slipped," the report concludes.

The Department for Education and Skills described as "nonsense" the claim that officials had not adequately prepared for budget reforms.

¿ Education authorities have been asked to draw up a "hit list" of headteachers who should be sacked and schools that should be closed due to poor performance. The Department for Education and Skills' request angered the Secondary Heads Association, which accused the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, of reverting to "crude naming and shaming policies".