The Government is ‘undermining’ its relationship with Head Teachers by repeating the mantra that more money than ever before is going into schools, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

The Head Teachers’ Roundtable group, which meets to discuss education policy, strongly criticised ‘political spin’ surrounding the education budget and a failure to recognise the pressure that school budgets are under.

The warning comes in its submission to the Commons Education Select Committee inquiry into school funding.

Members of the group met with the MPs on the committee this week to discuss their concerns.

Its chairman, Stephen Tierney, said that by talking about increased funding, without acknowledging rising pupil numbers and the costs facing schools, “the government is undermining its relationship with the profession”.

Mr Tierney, Chief Executive Officer of the Blessed Edward Bamber Catholic Multi-Academy Trust in Blackpool, added: “I don’t think it wants that and I don’t think the profession wants that.”

The group calls on the Government to scrap individual pots of money for particular projects, such as the Strategic School Improvement Fund and Teaching and Leadership and Innovation Fund, and use the savings for core schools funding.

Read the full article in the Tes.