By Sean Coughlan BBC News Online at the ATL conference in Blackpool

Teachers say some schools face a budget cut rather than an increase

Teachers are warning that budget shortages are undermining the national agreement over reforming the teaching profession.

School Standards Minister, David Miliband, will hear a strong message of concern over school funding when he addresses the annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Blackpool.

The traditionally moderate union says that one in twelve of its regional branches is reporting possible redundancies of teachers or support staff because of budget shortfalls.

"You can talk about the billions of pounds going into education but that is meaningless - what matters is the money going into each school," said deputy general secretary, Gerald Imison.

The union is worried that the �1bn set aside for reducing teachers' workload and recruiting more classroom assistants could be raided to meet more immediate cash shortages.

And Mr Imison warned that cutting the cash intended to implement the workload agreement could put the government in "breach" of its commitments.

Missing millions

But a union spokesperson said that this was a warning signal, rather than a threat to walk away from the agreement, signed by unions and the government in January.

When Mr Miliband speaks to the conference on Tuesday, teachers will be seeking assurances over the gap between what the government has promised and what they say is a growing cash crisis for individual schools.

The government has repeated that it has delivered a substantial funding increase for schools - up by almost 12% this year. And it has complained that local authorities are not passing on the increased budgets to schools.

But teachers have complained that changes to funding arrangements and increased costs have left some schools with deepening budget problems - and they now fear of having to make redundancies.

"The government must find out what has gone wrong with education funding and provide evidence that will satisfy us that the money set aside for the agreement will be used for that - and not to pay off debts," said Mr Imison.