Teachers are calling on Bradford council to spend more on education.

At Tuesday's schools sub-committee meeting, members were presented with and noted a report containing a petition of more than 400 signatures from Bradford's National Union of Teachers (NUT).

The union members claim the council's 'destructive' schools review proposals will result in drastic cuts in funding for language support services and threaten a 20 per cent cut in support for pupils with special educational needs.

They say essential education provision will be cut by hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Teachers add that the massive shake-up could 'plunge our schools into chaos' and save the council only a few pounds per pupil. They say: "We call on Bradford council to expand funding for education. Our children need more teachers, more support assistants, more books and more resources."

But Francis Marslen-Wilson, principal officer at the council, says Bradford has increased its expenditure on education by around £1.5 million.

He also says funding for special needs has not been reduced although language support services have suffered cutbacks.

In his comments, he says: "The school review, if enacted as proposed, will reduce overheads by about 6 million, quite apart from the educational benefits that will flow from a system more in tune with the national structure of education.

"The review will also attract large sums of money into education for new schools and a huge programme of improvements.'

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