THE front page of last week’s Bury Times had the headline “Schools to lose £6.6 million.”

This is not true and for our local paper to print politically motivated guesswork as fact is disappointing to say the very least.

The story quoted the Schools Cut Campaign, set up by a group of unions and James Frith MP, implacable enemies of the current government no matter what the circumstances, but did not seek the view of any opposition councillors from within the borough, essentially using the front two pages of the paper as an election leaflet for the Labour Party.

So with regard to funding of our schools, what is the position?

The budget report considered by council on February 21 provided details of the schools budgets for 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21. This highlighted overall school funding for 2017/18 as £170.5 million rising to £181.1 million in 2020/21.

The Bury Times story first paragraph stated, “ Funding cuts will leave schools in Bury down £6.6 million by 2020.”

Funding is therefore increasing and Mr Frith is simply not correct when he states: “the figures make clear that our schools are losing money, not gaining it” and we should expect better from our MP than to reduce every subject to a political soundbite.

We should not view funding of schools in the generic terms Mr Frith uses.

There is a wide variation in terms of the impact on individual schools. I am the chairman of governors at Bury’s only state nursery school situated in one of the most-deprived wards within the borough.

Funding is tight and has led to various cost saving measures, but this has not impacted the school gaining an outstanding rating from Ofsted. A brilliant headteacher and staff continue to deliver outstanding provision to pupils as is the case with many schools in our borough.

Nationally, 1.9 million children are now in good or outstanding schools.

There will be continued challenges that politicians should work together to solve.

In Walmersley, for example, there is an upcoming planning application for 270 homes on the Tetrosyl site. We have insufficient school places locally to meet this increased demand. This issue will be repeated all across the borough with the proposed house building to be outlined in the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework.

As political parties, let's unite to make sure a new school is built in Radcliffe and with schools being required to meet the additional costs of pay awards for teaching and non-teaching staff, increases in pension contributions and general price inflation, we must ensure these fixed costs do not impact on local educational provision.

As a governor of three schools in Bury, I see how our dedicated teachers and support staff deliver on a daily basis for our children, dealing with many complex and challenging issues.

As politicians, we either work together supporting schools to give our children the best chance of thriving and developing within the local education system or we risk reduce this important subject to a social media debate and policy by press release.

Cllr James Daly

Conservative Group Leader

Bury Council