THE Government is misleading the public and wrongly blaming local authorities for its lack of funding in schools, according to Kent County Council's (KCC) leader.

Education Secretary Charles Clarke blames councils for the shortage of money being injected into schools after teachers complained about a lack of cash.

But Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart says the Government is passing the buck for its own short-comings.

He said: "I think it's unfair because in councils such as Kent, the Government has not put in sufficient funding to keep up with the amount it has asked us to increase."

The Government insisted KCC should boost its education spending by £35m and social services spending by £20m but only gave a total increase of £31m.

Sir Sandy says all the money from the Government was channelled towards these services and the deficit was met by slashing 300 jobs at County Hall and raising council tax by 12.5 per cent.

He said: "We have passed on all the money we were given and considerably more from the taxpayer, and we have made cuts in County Hall, which is very sad."

Mr Clarke plans to call on local authorities to hand over their financial documents after the local elections.

But Sir Sandy says they will only back up what he has been saying all along.

April 29, 2003 13:00