Teachers are fuming after Oxfordshire County Council was told to give a bigger share of its budget to schools and spend less on support services.

The Department for Education announced that next year, education authorities must give at least 85 per cent of their budgets directly to schools - an increase of five per cent on this year.

That would leave less money to pay for support services such as curriculum advisers and training. Oxfordshire is already close to the target of 85 per cent because it is delegating 84.6 per cent of its 215m budget to schools this year.

But Mark Forder, secretary of the Oxfordshire branch of the National Union of Teachers, said: "We are not tremendously impressed by this - it is a way of conning people. It is moving money from one pot to the other."

Speaking in his capacity as chairman of the association of chief education officers, Graham Badman, Oxfordshire's chief education officer said:"Any moves to in- crease delegation beyond 85 per cent should be viewed with extreme caution.

"Failure to exercise such caution could result in LEAs having insufficient resources to deal with key issues such as special needs and raising stan- dards."