26 November 1999
Research by the union shows enormous disparities of funding between one local education authority and another, general secretary David Hart said on
November 25. Government targets are that LEAs should delegate 80% of their local schools budget to schools in 2000/01. The NAHT claims 56 LEAs are below target, of which eight, including Westminster, Manchester and Cambridgeshire, are more than 5% below.
However, the Local Government Association has dismissed the figures. Its education chair, Graham Lane, said the NAHT figures were not accurate and did not take several important factors into account.
He said: 'The figures are based on delegated budgets and do not take into account the many other grants councils use to fund initiatives in schools.
'The NAHT needs to be very careful because they have misinterpreted the sums.'
Hart said: 'The government is undertaking a fundamental review of the present system by which money is distributed to LEAs. Clearly that system
is now so ramshackle that it has passed its sell-by date. All the money which should be spent on education is not being spent.'
Lane rebutted the criticism. 'The NAHT should not draw simplistic conclusions from what are very complicated figures,' he said.
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