JOBS could be axed at west Wiltshire secondary schools as cash shortages force cutbacks.

Schools around the county are finding themselves having to perform a balancing act to meet budgets and redundancies amongst staff are already up over 50 per cent on last year.

West Wiltshire MP Andrew Murrison said: "The trouble is that the Government has put a lot of requirements on schools in general without necessarily giving them the resources they need."

The problems are despite the county receiving the highest level of Government funding available this year and the council tax increase to the county council going up by 10.8 per cent, the highest for many years.

These rises have been offset by the increased demands on schools, including higher national insurance and pension contributions and rises in teachers.

Trowbridge town and county councillor Jeff Osborn said: "I am concerned that a number of schools have deficit budgets.

"About 90 per cent of budget goes on staff costs so the only way to get out of this problem is to make staff redundant."

Education secretary Charles Clarke has suggested that the root of the problem, which is affecting schools across the country, is in the way it is allocated by local authorities. But Dr Murrison said: "I don't hold with that idea at all. It might be credible if the problem was just in isolated pockets but it is affecting the whole country."

Dr Murrison also criticised the secretary of state's plan to allow schools to use parts of their capital budget, reserved for matters such as new buildings, to meet staff costs.

He said: "The National Union of Head Teachers is quite right to say that this is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

"It really is a philosophy of despair to suggest that teachers should invest in that kind of short-sightedness."

County education chief Bob Wolfson has said that many redundancies are down to schools managing downwards. He said: "They have been living beyond their means, for a variety of justifiable reasons, and are concluding that there is now no alternative."

Wiltshire County Council anticipates the final level of redundancies in the county will be the equivalent of 25 full-time teachers and 10 full-time support staff.

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