Councillors join battle against school funding cuts

More than 1,000 local authority councillors have signed a letter urging the government to increase school funding.The letter from the NEU teaching union to education secretary Damian Hinds is due to be handed to the Department for Education this afternoon.It came after Mr Hinds last month told the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders he had “heard the message loud and clear on school funding”. In the letter, 1,115 councillors said the funding crisis has seen growing budget deficits, cuts in teaching staff, reductions in some subject areas and poorer education.It says: “The funding crisis has become so overwhelming that according to the Education Policy Institute, almost a third of all council-run secondary schools are now in deficit, and eight in ten academies are in deficit according to last year's Kreston UK report.“Many schools are now desperately overwhelmed, as more and more students are competing for fewer and fewer resources. Compounded by biting cuts to local council services, in addition to the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, the current settlement is not tenable.”