YORK'S education chief today condemned the Government's attempt to stave off the schools cash crisis as a "sticking plaster solution".

Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced today that cash-strapped schools would be allowed to raid their repair budgets to buy books or pay teachers wages.

This could free up £21,900 for the average primary school or £74,900 for a secondary school.

Cynthia Welbourn, the director of education for North Yorkshire County Council, welcomed the move.

But City of York Council's director of education, Patrick Scott, said it was not a long-term solution and would only benefit a certain number of schools.

He said: "It is only a solution for schools that have not spent devolved capital, it is not a solution for all schools.

"It is a sticking plaster solution as it is only for a year.

"If schools spent the money on a teacher this year, next year they will have the teacher but they will not have the money.

"This is a short-term solution and it may be in many cases a bad solution."

Chris Bridge, head teacher of Huntington School, said the announcement was adding insult to injury.

He said: "The idea that a school like Huntington could ease its serious budget problems by spending devolved capital on teacher funding is nonsense.

"We need that money to put towards the new buildings. This might help schools which have completely new buildings, but when you have the number of terrible mobiles as we do it adds insult to injury to be told you can spend the money on staff."

Lowfield School's head teacher John Thompson said spending the devolved capital would not solve long-term problems.

He said: "If you can spend the money on staff there are going to be problems with the building because things will not get done.

"Until the Government addresses the issue of the pupil allocation the problem is not going to be solved."

Mr Clarke's announcement comes just two weeks he accused local councils of not getting cash through to schools, and demanded to know why £1 million in York had failed to reach head teachers and £1.5 million in North Yorkshire had gone missing.

He said the money was now getting through to schools, but admitted it might not be enough.

Dozens of teachers across York and North Yorkshire are facing redundancy in the wake of budget cuts as well as falling pupil numbers.

Updated: 10:47 Thursday, May 15, 2003