The Local Government Association (LGA) rejected the education secretary's claim as 'unfounded'. LGA chairman Sir Jeremy Beecham pointed out that local councils were spending 100m more this year than the Government has allocated, and over ten years have spent 4.3bn above the Government's provision.
He said, 'Councils are demonstrating their commitment to education by increasing council tax in many areas to fund additional support for schools.'
Local authorities and teaching unions have blamed the Government for a Pounds 500m shortfall in education spending, which could lead to redundancies among teachers and support staff.
However, in a speech to the NASUWT last week, Mr Clarke said, 'More LEAs than expected appear not to have passported 100 per cent of education formula funding to education, despite indicating as recently as February that they would.'
Nearly a quarter of LEAs, he said, are planning to use more than 2m of revenue funding for capital projects. 'These authorities still have some Pounds 339m to allocate to schools, equivalent to around 500m for all LEAs. A fifth of authorities appear still to have 5m or more to allocate to schools.'
Mr Clarke conceded that the figures would 'require checking and double checking' but he said he would not meet the LGA's request for the Government to publish detailed figures until after the local authority elections in May.
The LGA said it would scrutinise the Government's figures, the councils'
actions and the workings of the local funding formula, which it said was 'currently driven too much by pupil numbers rather than pupil need'.
The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said the Government 'cannot shift the blame for this year's funding crisis on the LEAs as the secretary of state has tried to do'. David Hart, NAHT general secretary, added, 'Heads can have no confidence in the Government's ability to generate the resources schools need now and in the future in the light of this year's funding fiasco.'