ImmediateRelease 2May 2003

LEA budgetspublished Charles Clarke statement

Commenting on the LEAbudgets published today, Doug McAvoy, General Secretary of the National Unionof Teachers, said:

The schools fundingcrisis is a poisonous combination of Government incompetence, funding shortfalland spin.

The only prioritymust be for schools to receive sufficient funding to pay for the staffing,books and equipment they need.

There may well belocal authorities holding back too much but this is unsurprising given thefunding fog generated by Government.

Many schools facehaving to run deficit budgets this year to survive. They must not suffer penalties for that.

If Charles Clarkesays that his investigation exercise is not to apportion blame then he shouldaccept the consequences of that exercise.

I call on him tostand ready to draw on Government contingency funding to give a further cashinjection to schools to prevent redundancies and loss of posts.

EN D S pr35.03

For furtherinformation contact the NUT press office on: 020 7380 4706

*Note: A report for the NUT by independentconsultant John Atkins published onFriday 18 April 2003, found that schools needed between 8-14% increasesto stand still in 2003-4. It also foundthat the Government had provided no dedicated funding to help schools implementthe first stage of the school workforce agreement. Only one authority in the survey could confidently report a realterms increase in funding.