WORCESTERSHIRE County Council has been wrongly accused of withholding £3.7 million from schools' budgets and of 'shifting' £4.6 million education budget into capital projects.
Education Secretary Charles Clarke and Worcester MP Mike Foster are distorting the facts in order to divert attention from Government underfunding of education and its failure to distribute almost £1 billion of the national education budget.
The £3.7 million 'withheld' by Worcestershire comprises amounts which can and will be allocated to schools before the start of the new academic year - as has happened for many years.
The £4.6 million allegedly 'shifted to pay for changing the structure of education in Hagley' is in fact the cost of schools refurbishment with long-term benefits.
Similar amounts have been paid for several years, including when Labour ran the county.
If Worcestershire received just 1.5 per cent of the £1 billion the Government has failed to spend, our funding would rise to the average of shire counties.
PHILIP GRETTON
Conservative County Councillor for Redditch West
County Hall
Worcester
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