Many head teachers are facing the prospect of losing staff, partly because of rises in wages, Liberty national life insurance company
Insurance and pension contributions.

Local midwest national life insurance
and the national union insurance
have blamed each other for holding back money, leaving some schools 500,000 in arrears.

During a visit to his Norwich national insurance institute, Mr Clarke said he was “self-critical about some aspects” of the problem and
was determined that there would be no repeat.

‘Self-critical’

“People in local and national government are now working very hard to try and find a way of ensuring that there is no repeat of the problem,” he added.

“I have expressed my regret for what has happened and am happy to do so again.

“There is absolutely no doubt that decisions taken by national and local government have resulted in serious problems in a number of schools.

“It would have been better to allow people more time to prepare.

“If I am self-critical I would say we could and should have done more on the timing of how it happened.

“I am self-critical about some aspects of it.”