Schools will be a priority in the forthcoming spending review

But they warn that the funding system has been so confusing that schools feel suspicious about promises of more cash.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer will today put forward spending plans which will confirm extra money for education.

Head teachers' leader, John Dunford, hopes forthcoming changes to funding arrangements will give schools greater confidence in spending promises.

The spending review will identify education as a spending priority - with the Chancellor's last budget already having promised average increases of 4.4% above inflation for the next three years.

Spending promises

Chancellor Gordon Brown has said that the UK's education spending will have risen from �37bn in 1997, when Labour took office, to a promised �77bn in 2007-08.

EDUCATION SPENDING ANNOUNCED IN BUDGET Average spending increases of 4.4% above inflation each year up to 2007-08 Spending per pupil in England: 1997:�2,500 2004: �4,500 2007: �5,500 UK education budget: 1997: �37bn (�29bn England) 2007: �77bn (�64bn England) 5.6% of national wealth (GDP) DfES jobs cut by 31%

Mr Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, says that these funding increases have been reaching schools.

But he says that the complexities of the funding arrangements have clouded the increases in confusion - and some schools felt they were missing out.

"There needs to be greater clarity. Schools have been very suspicious of funding promises." And he says that too often "the government has blamed local education authorities and local education authorities have blamed the government - and schools have been left to sort it out."

Mr Dunford says that the funding system has meant that individual schools did not always benefit from the national increases in education spending.

This could be because they had not had specific grants, or because they were in parts of the country that had a long history of underfunding.

He also said the allocation of funds for specific purposes did not give schools the sense of having their own extra money to spend on their own priorities.

But he says changes to school funding, announced last week in a five-year plan for education, could give head teachers a greater sense of control over their budgets.

Throughout the years of the Labour government there have been continuous claims and counter-claims over education spending.

Rich and poor schools

While the government has announced large increases in spending per pupil, there have been complaints from schools that they do not feel that they have this extra spending power.

This came into sharper focus last year, when some schools were complaining of funding shortages as the government announced that it was spending more than ever on education.

Teachers' union, the NASUWT has also pointed to the disparity between schools which last year complained of shortages, while there were other schools sitting on large amounts of unspent money - in some cases hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The union hopes that a change to longer-term funding will give schools more confidence in spending, rather than stockpiling money in reserve.