30 May 2003
Schools with budget surpluses must be forced to hand them over to their struggling counterparts to help solve the education funding crisis, a teaching union has demanded.
The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers made the call as teachers across the country waited to find out on May 31 if they would be made redundant because of the apparent black hole in many schools' budgets.
NASUWT general secretary Eamonn O'Kane told Public Finance>/i> it was unacceptable that staff should lose their jobs when there was enough money in the system to prevent it happening.
'There is over £1bn in schools' balances. Are we talking about an education system or the autonomy of individual schools? Money is not sent to them to accumulate in the bank,' he said. 'The government should use its powers to order local education authorities to redistribute surplus school balances to those with significant problems.'
O'Kane made his demand as councils and ministers tried to resolve the ongoing row over the alleged £500m shortfall in this year's education settlement.
Chris Waterman, executive director of the Confederation of Education Service Managers, told PF there needed to be an immediate cash injection followed by an urgent rethink of the distribution system. 'We do not want a repeat of this mess in 12 months' time,' he added.
But Education Secretary Charles Clarke has so far refused to make extra money available for this year to stave off redundancies.
One senior education figure told PF Clarke would perform a U-turn only if the scale of the job losses that have been predicted made it absolutely necessary.
'He'll wait to see what the redundancy figures are like on Friday before making a final decision,' the source added.
PFmay2003
