Plymouth council will be meeting school heads

Plymouth City Council is getting an extra �831,000 as part of a �28m handout to councils around England.

Labour leader Tudor Evans said it would make a "huge difference" to the authority, which is planning to cut teachers' jobs.

The cash windfall from the government came after Plymouth, along with many other councils around England, had complained that government funding had left schools with large shortfalls.

Redundancies should be the last resort Tudor Evans

Plymouth earmarked �113m for education in the coming year, but warned that up to a 100 teachers, and twice as many teaching assistants, would lose their jobs in September.

Plymouth Labour group leader Tudor Evans, said the extra cash would ease pressure on jobs, although he admitted that some could still be lost.

He said: "It makes a huge difference to schools and jobs.

"We will need to assess the overall situation, but it will help Plymouth schools avoid redundancies."

MPs delighted

He said the council would be meeting heads and governors "as a matter of urgency" to thrash out the details.

"The council, on behalf of taxpayers, should be making sure that the redundancies can be avoided, but in order to do that the council needs to know all the money that schools have available.

"Redundancies should be the last resort."

The government is targeting money at authorities where the increase in general funding between 2002-03 and 2003-04 was less than 3.2% per pupil.

The grants announced mean all authorities have an increase of at least 3.2% per pupil.

Plymouth MPs Linda Gilroy and David Jamieson, who have lobbied the government for the extra cash, said they were delighted.