Bradford teachers are facing redundancy as schools struggle to balance their budgets, unions claimed today.

Teaching unions report funding crises at 17 primary schools across the district. They say some schools are having to shed staff, mostly by natural wastage, but in some cases there is a risk of redundancy.

Where schools are still shrinking after reorganisation - switching from a three-tier to a two-tier system of primaries and secondaries - teachers are protected by a union deal and could be redeployed at other schools.

Despite claims by national and local politicians of millions of pounds' extra cash for education, unions fear it is not directly helping schools.

From September, heads are expected to cut workload on their teachers by relieving them of 25 administrative duties. Some say they do not know if they can afford to pay support staff to take over.

"They say they are putting an extra £7 to £9 million into education in Bradford next year, but it doesn't seem to be going to the schools," said Ian Davey, of the NASUWT teaching union, "Those with falling rolls are facing a double whammy and are having to unload two or three members of staff. We are being called in because they have to consult trade unions."

He said school staff were facing extreme stress in cases where it was happening.

Ian Murch, of the National Union of Teachers, added: "We have never had a compulsory teacher redundancy in Bradford. I hope we don't have one this year. This is the largest number of threatened redundancies for many years."

The problems were confirmed by Alan Davy, an executive member of the Nat-ional Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and head at Shipley CE Primary.

His own school is facing job losses as it is in the process of moving from two forms of entry to one.

"We have job losses here because of re-organisation, but it's normally handled through natural wastage," he said.

"This year nobody has indicated that they have got another job, so we are having to look at voluntary re-deployment or, if that doesn't work, nominating people."

He said the workload agreement coming into effect in September would increase the pressures.

Councillor David Ward, executive member for education, said: "The situation in schools is generally much better than it was three or four years ago. If schools have reducing pupil numbers, that's something that should be planned for.