BRAINTREE MP James Cleverly has said parents and teachers were concerned about scare stories coming out of education funding changes.

Cleverly asked Justine Greening, the secretary of state for education, if any schools would lose out as a result of introducing a national funding formula.

David Cameron's Government committed to introducing the formula to calculate the amount of core revenue funding mainstream schools in England would attract.

When the consultation for the project finished in March, news stories claimed schools would get reduced funding because of the changes.

Justine Greening said:"We are going beyond saying that no schools will lose out as a result of the formula, and are saying that every school will gain at least 0.5% additional as part of the introduction of the school formula.

"It is important for me to be clear that the way we are introducing it is through working with local authorities.

"They therefore will put their own formula, the final allocation, to schools, but we will be very clear that what we are giving them means that no school need lose out, and in fact, further than that, every school should be able to gain."

James Cleverly said: "I welcome the Government’s delivery on our manifesto commitment to ensure that no school loses out under the national funding formula—it is nice to see that at least one party takes its educational commitments at election time seriously."

Essex County Council currently receives a funding formula to spend on education in the form of the revenue support grant calculated by the relative needs formula.

Under proposed changes, Essex County Council would receive a separate funding stream entirely for education.

The Government consultation, published in March, said this will make education funding clearer and instead of 'a complex network of formulas'.