DISTRICT headteachers have descended on Westminster to urge the Government for more money for Worcestershire schools.

Representatives of Wyre Forest heads joined up to 200 colleagues from across the county to lobby ministers for fairer funding for the county, which is consistently at the bottom of the national funding table.

They are fed up with being penalised by the Standard Spending Assessment, which has seen the county repeatedly lose out to councils in the south east.

As well as a shortfall in the education budget of about £2.3 million, for the sixth year running county schools will have to cope with a standstill budget.

A Kidderminster headteacher summed up the feelings of colleagues, who were due to lobby county MPs yesterday for a meeting with ministers, when he said "enough is enough!"

St Oswald's First School head Barry Jenkins said: "This inequality has been around for a long time. Promises are made year on year - in the meantime our children are going through school - they are not being treated in a fair way."

Mr Jenkins revealed if the county received funding to the level of, for example, Hertfordshire, his school would benefit by a further £48,642.

He said: "That would enable us in the first year to employ an extra top quality teacher and two high performance computers in each classroom - year on year we could continue to employ the teacher and buy additional equipment."

Education funding is based on a complicated formula that includes data on pupil numbers, deprivation, costs of providing services in rural areas and teachers' wage costs.

The Government has acknowledged the system is not perfect and has published a local government finance Green Paper setting out options.

Ministers are considering these options and are due to publish a White Paper later this year.

Mr Jenkins noted the acknowledgement of headteachers' concerns in Education Secretary David Blunkett's comments to the Shuttle/Times & News below.

And he stressed the Labour administration had put "an awful lot of money" into education.

He added: "However, this is not the issue. It is the standard spending assessment we feel is unfair.

"We hope ministers will endorse this and see some way to an interim settlement before the White Paper comes out to redress these imbalances."