A PETITION with more than 1,500 signatures will be handed to education chiefs today.

Campaigners calling for “fair funding for all schools” are lobbying Southampton City Council to help prevent a “severe funding crisis” in city schools as they say they are having to make redundancies, not replace staff and cut extra-curricular activities.

It comes just days after education secretary Justine Greening announced a £1.3 billion cash boost for schools across the country, with a new national funding formula to be rolled out in 2018.

But organisers of the campaign say that the money isn’t “new money” and is being “taken from Peter to pay Paul”.

Organiser Nick Chaffey said the petition is being handed in now so that city councillors can ask for schools to run on a licensed deficit when they meet in September – which will stop them from having to make further budget cuts.

He said: “Schools are not overspending. We have a list of hundreds of schools which are cutting courses and are not able to pay teaching assistants.

“The Institute of Fiscal Studies has scrutinised the figures. It’s not new money going into education. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s coming from existing budgets.”

But the Department for Education said a “£1.3 billion boost for core school funding will mean local authorities are able to increase the amount of cash going to every school” with “additional investment over the next two years during the transition to the NFF allowing an increase in the basic amount of funding for all pupils”.

It added: “The new formula will maintain overall per pupil funding in real terms for the next two years; and it will allow for a cash increase for every school.”

Southampton City Council’s education boss Councillor Darren Paffey said nine or ten city schools are already running on a deficit.

He added: “I am expecting to get a letter from Justine Greening in a few days’ time to see what her announcement means for the Southampton schools.

“There’s just not enough money going into the pot.”