A charity which helps vulnerable children overcome their reading difficulties has had to withdraw from parts of Oxford because of a funding crisis.

Reading Quest, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, is now operating at a deficit of £75,000 and has warned it may have to stop at any moment.

The charity works with 300 five and six-year-old children in deprived parts of the county each year. They often have low self-esteem, emotional and behavioural difficulties or speak English as an additional language.

Some are refugees or living in care and others are not receiving parental support at home.

It takes £10,000 a year to keep the scheme going in east Oxford alone -- where children from ethnic minority backgrounds need the extra support.

The Isis partnership of seven primary schools, which includes schools in east Oxford, have agreed to pay £7,500 out of their own budgets -- half the annual cost of one tutor for a year -- but need to find the balance.

Provided they raise the other half, each school will be able to provide tuition for five pupils during the year.

This will still mean that more than 100 pupils who need extra help will be missing out on the tuition.

The scheme was initially funded by Oxfordshire County Council through Government funding for the Education Action Zone cluster of schools in the city, which was withdrawn when the EAZ project came to an end.

A number of local businesses in Cowley Road have responded to the charity's appeal for funding, including Powell's Home Improvement, EC Grocers and Pak Halal Centre.

But Reading Quest coordinator Penny Tyack said major funding was needed.

She said: "The county council supported us in the first place because of the impact that they could see we were having on the emotional and behaviour difficulties of children in schools.

"We've struggled since that funding ended and we're now running at a deficit of £75,000.

"It's absolutely critical. At any moment we will have to stop.

"We've got just enough money to keep staff on -- they're all on short-term contracts."

The former Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith invited the charity to apply for a donation in his capacity as chairman of the Centre for Social Justice and praised the scheme during a visit to East Oxford Primary School in February.

More than 70 per cent of pupils at the school in Union Street are from ethnic minority backgrounds and about 30 pupils receive Reading Quest tuition.

The charity has since been told that it will not be receiving support through the centre.

Judith Morris, head of the county council's school development service, said: "Reading Quest is a good initiative and the county council learning and culture directorate has examined ways to carry on supporting the project financially.

"However, due to the rules regarding the delegation of funding to schools, the county council is unable to fund specific projects at specific schools.

"Schools themselves are allocated Standards Funding and can make decisions to bring in projects such as Reading Quest to offer extra support to pupils."

To contact Reading Quest, call 01865 433357.