UNION leaders today raised fears that teachers could be made redundant because of a cash crisis at Beaconsfield High School.

They said they were worried jobs could go if attempts to plug a £1.3m black hole through a land sale fail.

The school signed a builders’ contract for a sixth form - but did not have the cash to pay for it. The building will open in September.

It now hopes sale of its Taylor Centre facility will put it in the clear – but said a ‘plan B’ would pay for it without job losses.

The school last month said the centre was ‘not fit for purpose’ – but a March newsletter said it would be kept and developed.

The warning came as a senior education officer criticised the Wattleton Road school for signing the building contract.

It got permission from Buckinghamshire County Council to get into debt with BCC cash to pay the builders.

National Union Teachers representative Annette Pryce said: “If the vast majority of the budget goes on staffing, there will inevitably be redundancies.”

Geoff Herbert, of the NASUWT, said: “If you are confident this land can be sold because it is in a prime building position, then that should be backed by some financial statement to the teachers.”

He said he was concerned jobs would go if planning permission is not won for flats on the land, which the school is to seek in the coming months.

Councillor Steven Adams, responsible for schools, said: “It is fair to say we are doing our best to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Yet Louise Goll, divisional director for achievement and learning told the unions that staffing remained in the control of the school.

And she said: “If that assurance was given in that way, it could be we end up protecting one school at the expense of others.”

Yet NUT’s Lee Ryder asked: “What is to stop other schools following this if they know they will get what they want?”

Mrs Goll said it is ‘not a pleasant position to be in’ for the school, to which Mr Ryder said: “It might not be a pleasant place to be in but they got what they wanted.”

Executive head Pete Rowe, in charge until a new head is appointed, said the land sale was backed by a separate ‘recovery plan’, including parental donations.

He told The Bucks Free Press: “We have a recovery plan in place to pay back the licensed deficit over a five year period.

“The present recovery plan does not involve redundancy.”

Chris Munday, divisional director, commissioning business improvement, today criticised the school.

He said: “There are a number of lessons that need to be learned from this experience.

“I have not experienced it in my career in local Government to the extent that has happened.”

He said: “In an ideal world they shouldn’t have entered into that contract and they shouldn’t have been given permission to do that [from the governing body].”

Mr Munday said: “For some reason unknown to the local authority, and has been identified in the media, the school entered a contract to build the sixth form centre without having sufficient resource to do that.”

He said: “This is something that was very much caused by the school itself and it has to be responsible for solving it.

“The school will be in pain for quite some time.”

He said a similar situation would present a challenge as the Beaconsfield development was mostly paid for by parent donations.

Previous headteacher Penny Castagnoli had ‘left before the situation arose and the chairman of governors resigned after that’ he told today's meeting of the joint advisory and consultative group (schools).

Former chairman of governors Charles Hunt told the BFP he first announced his intention to retire last year. He said this was due to work commitments and it was not connected to the crisis.

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