Six Hampshire County Council teachers are likely to be made redundant this summer.

It is unclear where the redundancies will be made or whether they are linked to the current school funding crisis. A county council spokesman said: "We are not sure of the reasons. It could be a fall in pupil numbers, or funding problems."

But she claimed that Hampshire's putting council tax up by 15% earlier this spring to give schools more money could have staved off more redundancies.

This follows claims in the national press, later rubbished by the education secretary, Charles Clarke, that up to 3,000 teachers nationwide could be laid off because of the funding crisis.

Mr Clarke has granted headteachers powers to dig into their capital budgets to meet the day-to-day running costs of their schools, including teachers' salaries.

Ken Thornber, leader of the Conservative-controlled county council, said that, although he welcomed the education secretary's recognition of the real financial problems that were facing schools, it was "not an ideal solution". He predicted that the "temporary stop-gap" measure would store up more problems.

"I expect that most schools will not tap into their capital funding, as they will have concerns about the impact it will have on essential building and repair work, as well as necessary equipment to ensure pupils can go on receiving a high-quality education."

Mr Thornber blamed changes to the local government funding formula for the crisis. "This council did its utmost to protect schools from financial problems this year, passing on the full budget increase set by the Government- despite it not giving us enough grant to do so-and we gave schools more on top.

"We will now aim to assist the Government on how to secure its education funding system in the future to avoid this situation being repeated."

The county employs a total of 15,000 part-time and full-time teachers.

The news brought a swift reaction from the profession's second-largest union. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Will Jones, the local secretary of the Hampshire West Association of the NAS/UWT.

"And, of course, it does not take into account the number of posts which are not being filled where teachers are retiring, moving to other schools on promotion, or the ending of temporary contracts.

"I know personally of one school in this area where two full-time teachers are not being replaced in order to save money on the budget. Pupils and staff are bound to be affected in the next academic year."