Extra school funds ruled out

Charles Clarke regrets the "demoralisation" caused by school funding problems

Schools struggling with funding problems will not receive any extra government money this year, says the Education Secretary Charles Clarke.

Facing questions from the Education Select Committee, Mr Clarke promised to reassure schools about future funding - but accepted that his reputation and the education department's had been "damaged" by the funding problems.

The education secretary said that resolving the worries over funding was his "number one priority", but he rejected claims that the shortages faced by some schools had been caused by the budget miscalculations of his department.

There have been claims that schools will have to make hundreds of teachers redundant because of cash shortages, but Mr Clarke said that he was "sceptical" about such surveys.

Mr Clarke also ruled out plans for schools to be funded directly from central government.

There had been suggestions that after disputes with local government over the allocation of school funds, that the government would introduce a system where money was passed directly from Whitehall to schools.

While Mr Clarke ruled this out, he suggested that there could be other changes to funding mechanisms, including a tighter restriction on how local government passed on funds.

'Extremely unfortunate'

Another option under consideration, he said, was for a "national fund" for schools, which could guarantee a minimum level of per pupil funding. But he emphasised this would not be a "national funding formula" which would determine centrally how much each school might receive.

Mr Clarke said that he hoped to deliver a statement on funding to the House of Commons later this week.

Under pressure from the cross-party committee of MPs, the education secretary also repeated his own regret at the problems caused by this year's difficulties in allocating school budgets.

He accepted that changes in budgets had created "significant pressures" and "serious demoralisation" in some schools. And he said that the funding difficulties had been "extremely unfortunate".

Looking ahead, he put forward three ambitions for funding: real-term increases for schools, a two-year settlement and an early setting of budgets next year to help schools plan ahead.