COUNCIL leader Phelim Mac Cafferty has warned the city’s schools could be forced to cut staff due to inadequate funding from government.

In a letter to new education secretary Kit Malthouse, the leader of Brighton and Hove City Council said that next year’s cash allocation will “seriously jeopardise the quality and provision of education to children and young people in the city”.

Cllr Mac Cafferty has called on Mr Malthouse to “urgently reconsider” the funding to “maintain and safeguard the education of the city’s children and young people”.

He said: “In order to balance their budgets over the longer term, I fear schools will have little choice but to cut staffing and reduce the quality of education provision to their pupils.”

The Department for Education has told the council it will receive an increase of 1.7 per cent per pupil next year, which the council has slammed as “clearly inadequate”.

'Almost half of city's schools could end up in deficit'

Cllr Mac Cafferty told the education secretary that 14 schools in the city were in cash arrears at the start of the financial year in April and that spiralling energy costs and rising prices could force another 16 schools into deficit this year.

He said: “This means around 30 schools, or nearly 50 per cent of the city’s schools, will be in deficit in the current financial year. This is an utterly untenable and unsustainable position.

“All councils will look at options to manage changes in roll numbers across their schools, but these funding pressures will go well beyond any measures that councils can reasonably adopt to manage the financial challenges.”

The letter comes as teachers’ leaders claim the cost-of-living crisis is harming children’s education.

NASUWT general secretary Dr Patrick Roach said it should “not be left to schools and teachers to pick up the pieces of the cost of living crisis” after some teachers told the union that they have had to give food and clothing to pupils.

Dr Roach said: “At a time when many teachers are already struggling financially, they are routinely digging deep into their own pockets to provide urgent help to their pupils.

“The responsibility should rest with ministers, not with schools, to tackle poverty and ensure families are able to send children to school ready and equipped to learn.”