Headteachers demand £15bn a year of extra spending to prevent staff cuts

Headteachers have demanded a government cash injection for schools of up to £15bn a year to preserve thousands of teachers' jobs.

A survey by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) revealed that seven out of 10 school budgets had failed to meet rising costs.

The survey of nearly 1,400 schools, published at the association's annual conference in Torquay, concluded that "significant job losses are looming". Nearly half the schools (45 per cent) said they would be forced this year to make staffing cuts that would lead to more than 600 job losses, 323 among teachers and 313 among support staff.

David Hart, the general secretary of the NAHT, is expected to argue in his address to the conference tomorrow that the Education budget must rise to £73bn a year, from £58bn, by 2006 – the end of the period to be covered by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, in his comprehensive spending review next month. That would bring it in line with most countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Mr Hart said the figures in the survey translated into "several thousand teaching and support staff jobs across the country as a whole".

He added: "It really is plum crazy to be faced with staff reductions when we're supposed to be taking on more teachers and more support staff in order to reduce workload." Labour promised in its election manifesto to increase the number of teachers by 9,000 and support staff by 20,000.

Mr Hart argued that the cuts were necessary because a teachers' pay settlement had driven up school salaries by at least 5 per cent this year, well above the rate of inflation. And for schools in London, which rely on younger teachers to fill vacant posts, the costs would be higher because the deal allowed them to move more quickly up the pay scale.

Gareth Matthewson, the vice-president of the NAHT and head of Whitchurch high school, a comprehensive in Cardiff, said the cost of exam fees had shot up by 50 per cent in the past two years. In his school, the fees rose from £80,000 to £120,000.

A statement from the Department for Education and Skills said it was ludicrous to talk about large-scale redundancies. There were 20,000 more teachers in schools than in 1997 and funding per pupil had risen by 20 per cent, it said.

But Mr Hart said: "What the Government says has gone into schools has not actually got there. The vast majority has not had increases to match their rising costs.

"It doesn't mean to say your going to see wholesale redundancies but short-term contracts will not be renewed, part-time contracts will be cancelled, vacancies which schools have been struggling to fill will remain unfilled and, in some cases, schools will have to get rid of staff."

Today, headteachers will debate a call for industrial action if agreement on a plan to modernise the profession and reduce workload is not reached by the end of the autumn term. The call will be made minutes before David Miliband, the new minister for School Standards, addresses the conference.