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Anger on school funding erupts at NAHT annual conference

Schools could refuse to submit their budgets, run deficits or cut down their working week as a result of the “tsunami” of government spending cuts.

Last week, members of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) voted overwhelmingly to consider all options to “avert the funding crisis”.

Some delegates at the union’s annual conference in Telford told SecEd that the current funding crisis was the biggest challenge facing schools in decades.

School leaders at the event voiced their anger that ministers have not been listening to their concerns and instead continued to claim – “like a recorded message” – that spending on education was at record levels.

However, a National Audit Office (NAO) report earlier this year warned that schools are facing real-terms budget cuts of £3 billion by 2020 because government spending is not keeping pace with rising pupil numbers, as well as hikes in the National Insurance and pensions contributions that schools have to make.

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