SCHOOLS in Herefordshire may see their budgets cut from April.

Cost-cutting measures will be considered because of a predicted £1.5 million shortfall in the overall Herefordshire schools budget.

Playgroups and nurseries may also suffer after changes because of cuts to nursery education grants.

The funding problems have been blamed on changes to the way the Government allocates funding.

Until now, schools mainly relied on money from the dedicated schools grant – allocated to the local council by central government on a per pupil basis.

This was topped up with a range of other grants including the standards fund and area based grant, but these have been stopped or reduced.

The problem was discussed at Herefordshire’s Schools Forum which agreed to distribute a consultation document at a meeting of headteachers.

The document includes a series of cash-saving measures.

Schools and early years settings can respond to the paper this month before the forum considers a set of formal proposals at the beginning of March.

Budgets must be set by the end of March.