Times are hard and they are going to get harder is the message to Oxfordshire schools as education officials draw up emergency plans to prevent teacher redundancies.

Oxfordshire County Council has responded to complaints from headteachers that their budgets had been slashed by organising "budget surgeries".

Finance officers will visit schools to help heads and governors to manage their deficits.

The council and the Oxfordshire Secondary Schools Headteachers' Association (OSSHA) also plan to write to Education Secretary Charles Clarke about the problems they face.

The Government has claimed that school budgets increased by about 10 per cent this year, but council officers said the increase had been eaten up by higher pension costs, extra National Insurance contributions, inflation and higher pay for teachers.

Council leader Keith Mitchell has blamed the Government for the crisis and warned that the financial situation would get worse next year, when the council will need to make a further £4.7m of savings.

He said: "It's not clear that the Government understands all the cost pressures on schools this year.

"We're looking very hard at this budget to see if schools are underfunded. If so we will be banging on Charles Clarke's door. The Government changed the formula this year and gave us a £4.7m grant which we won't be getting next year. Next year has the potential to be very tight."

In a House of Commons debate, Witney MP David Cameron accused the Government of forcing schools to sack staff. He said: "Up to now, when I have talked to secondary heads in Oxfordshire, they have always said that their problems are recruiting and retaining teachers in such areas where housing costs are high.

"It's a tragedy that those same schools, which have had such trouble recruiting and retaining teachers, will now have to sack them because the money provided by the Government has simply not been sufficient."

Rod Walker, chairman of OSSHA's finance committee, said: "We're pleased the council now recognises that we're not crying wolf, and schools have real problems."