A FAREHAM head teacher has been forced to reduce the number of pupils using a support unit for children with learning and social difficulties in a bid to balance the books.

Neville Lovett head Neil Dewhurst said that due to funding problems from central government the centre would be available to just three year groups instead of the whole school.

He has been forced to reassign the full-time member of staff who oversaw the unit to a position within the main school because they could not afford to advertise for new staff.

Mr Dewhurst said: "It is a constant challenge I'm afraid. I will be proposing to the governing body to approve moving the full-time teacher out of the centre leaving two assistants.

"It will have an impact on the support and level of work the pupils can achieve but it is the best solution to the problem. We are also looking at just leaving the service open to Years 7,8 and 9.

"It is a problem of funding. We thought the government was making a real commitment to these centres that help children remain in mainstream schools by developing the 'Standards' grant which specifically funded them.

"However, we have been told that the grant is no longer available so we have to make a decision on how we can continue to run the centre without the government's support. We just do not know what will happen year to year but we were confident that the standards grant would continue, we were obviously mistaken."

Mr Dewhurst added that he was facing a £85,000 shortfall in next year's budget and even with the staff reshuffle would still need extra funds to balance the books.

"It works out at about a three per cent shortfall in the budget. By moving the staff member to replace someone who has left we will save around £75,000 overall so we will have to agree some sort of overspend with the local education authority."

Hampshire County Council refused to comment.