THE FUTURE of school funding in Northumberland is a bleak prospect as the local authority works to make savings of over £2m.

Members of Northumberland County Council’s cabinet met this week to consider how to reduce a predicted £2.2m overspend in the education budget.

And in the wake of recent claims from unions that schools across the country could lose £2.5bn over the next four years, the discussion quickly became gloomy.

There is a projected overspend of £2.2m in Northumberland County Council’s Dedicated Schools Grant for 2016/17, the main source of revenue for state-funded schools.

A number of recommended solutions to reduce the overspend, which represents 1.29 per cent of the total £170m budget, were considered and accepted by the assembled councillors.

However, there is expected to be annual overspends in the Dedicated Schools Grant until 2020.

And the meeting heard that the Education Support Grant from central Government will reduce to zero over the next three years.

This means that the education team and education services must be funded from the Dedicated Services Grant.

Recently, the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers published calculations suggesting that Tynedale would lose £1,459,324 in Government cuts.

Moreover, the Government is now considering responses to their consultation on a new National Funding Formula.

Currently, Northumberland County Council is able to re-allocate funding from the Dedicated Schools Grant to support smaller schools in the area.

However, the new formula will give less power to local authorities in directing schools’ funding, which will instead be determined by pupil numbers.

There are serious concerns that this per-head funding formula will hit rural Northumberland hardest.

Speaking at the meeting, director of education at Northumberland County Council, Andy Johnson, said: “When the National Funding Formula is published we will have to re-visit funding for schools generally and come up with strategy that enables schools to survive financially.

“With per-capita funding we may find that small schools with two or three teachers can’t carry on paying them. Until we know what the funding formula is we’re in an impossible position.”

Chairing the meeting, County Councilor Grant Davey, Leader of Northumberland County Council described the scenario as a ‘disaster’.

Cabinet member for Children’s Services, Coun. Robert Arckless said: “The problem is that the Government’s idea of a small school and the reality in Northumberland is hugely different.

“This council has made robust representations to Government about some of the particular issues for a rural county like ours.”