Schools, according to a national governors’ survey, are facing an average 4 per cent cut in budgets and say they will have to reduce staff. Campaigns are being launched to put pressure on MPs and councillors.

This year’s toughest-ever spending round, announced in the November Budget, comes when pupil numbers are rising - an increase of 120,000 is predicted for next September. According to initial returns of the National Governors Council survey of governors’ associations only three out of 24 authorities will be able to use savings to cushion the education funding shortfall.

The remaining 21 expected average cuts at school level of between 3.5 and 4 per cent, said vice-chairman Jack Morrish. “Most schools spend Pounds 4 out of every Pounds 5 of their budgets on staffing costs - it will be virtually impossible for them to make savings without reducing staff and increasing class sizes.”

The council, formed last year with the intention of campaigning on behalf of governing bodies to reflect their new decision-making role in education, aims to lobby MPs on the increasingly contentious issues of class sizes and cuts in books and equipment. It is backed by the main teaching unions and the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations.

New Government figures, obtained by Don Foster, education spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, show class sizes have already increased by more than 20 per cent between January 1992 and 1994 with a million primary pupils in classes of more than 30.

The survey’s findings are backed by local authority predictions that 10, 000 teachers’ jobs could be lost. “I know councils complain every year, but this time the pips are really squeaking. Education is bound to suffer as other priorities, for example, community care, are competing for the meagre resources,” said a senior local authority source. “And if the teachers’ pay award is of the order of 2 per cent or more, councils will have to pass on the increase to schools for the second year.”

Chris Tipple, Northumberland’s chief education officer, said the authority had suffered real cuts to its education budget of Pounds 13 million between 1992-95 and this year, in line with most councils, it could only raise spending by 0.5 per cent.

“The outcome is predictable - cuts of Pounds 4.4 million in education this year,” he said. “If schools are made to cut their budgets by 3 to 4.5 per cent around 100 teacher jobs will be lost and class sizes increase by one or two pupils. The situation really is extremely bleak.”

Oxfordshire’s secondary heads’ association calculates between three and four teachers could lose their jobs in an average secondary forcing class sizes up by one or two pupils, he said.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said schools were confronted with “a triple whammy”.

“We face the toughest spending year to date with a rising pupil population the Government has ignored, together with a pay increase for teachers and support staff for which it has done precious little other than mouth platitudes about efficiency savings,” he said.

The NAHT is currently surveying local authorities. “Feedback so far from regions including Shropshire, Devon, Norfolk, and Barnsley, show the authorities are bracing themselves for a very difficult year,” said Mr Hart.

Dr James Barnard, the NGC’s Somerset region representative, said governors would be forced to make unpalatable choices. The prospect of selecting staff for redundancy was already distressing some governors. He said: “We are going to have to cut jobs when we know it isn’t in the best interest of the school. It seems that governors are being given the task of doing the Government’s dirty work.

“This is not why I volunteered to become a governor. It is all too easy for the Treasury to say we are having a 1 or 2 per cent cut - it doesn’t have to think about the children.”

“People have talked about resigning rather than make teachers redundant but it does not really help schools,” he said. “The route we have recommended is lobbying MPs and councillors.”

At Blyth Tynedale middle school, Northumberland, staff avoided redundancies last year by agreeing to do maintenance work on the buildings and carrying over Pounds 20,000. However, David Gray, its head, predicted job losses could now be unavoidable.

With a projected cut of up to 4 per cent - Pounds 24,000 - from this year’s budget he said: “We now have little choice but to look at staffing and not just at losing one teacher, we have cut everything else and the savings we must make can only be found one way.”

One Lancashire head said: “I have been poring over our budget and I’m going to have to recommend to the governing body that we do not fill a vacancy for a deputy head and we could be looking to lose six teachers.

“There is a 4 per cent cut in the budget, which is really 6.5 because we were not funded for the teachers’ pay award last year. How can the Government expect us to sustain special needs provision and the curriculum and cope with large classes?”