Councils today warned that a dramatic improvement in London schools will be reversed by Government funding cuts.
Results in London schools have risen steadily over the past 10 years, with poor children in particular racing ahead of their counterparts around the UK.
But London Councils, the body that represents every local authority in the capital, said standards will be undermined by Government changes to education funding.
The Department for Education plans to slash the Education Services Grant, used by local authorities for “school improvement” such as teacher training and monitoring schools that are underperforming.
A spokesman for London Councils said the cuts risk undoing the work of London Challenge, a scheme credited with much of the success in improving schools because it set up networks so the worst schools could learn from the best.
He said: “These changes will threaten the rising school standards in the capital which have been improving for the past 10 years.”
A spokeswoman for the department for education said: “We recognise that these savings will be challenging but we are protecting the overall schools’ budget in real terms up to 2015-16, including the pupil premium. This reflects our determination to protect frontline budgets that pay for the effective running of schools up and down the country.”
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