The threat of redundancies for teachers is unacceptable, one the profession's leading unions has warned.

With the row over school funding still rumbling on, the NASUWT claimed there was enough money in budgets and job cuts were unnecessary.

It also warned that some head teachers were using the crisis as a way of not implementing agreements on cutting workloads.

The union threatened strike action if progress was halted by the current problems.

Eamonn O'Kane, NASUWT's general secretary, blamed the crisis on the local management of schools system introduced by the Conservatives in 1989 and continued by successive Labour education secretaries.

"With more than £1.14 billion estimated to be in school balances, it is simply unacceptable that any teacher in any school should be threatened with redundancy," said O'Kane.

"This Alice in Wonderland situation, which results in one school gaining over another, is the product of the local management of schools introduced by the Conservative government in 1989 and enthusiastically endorsed by subsequent Labour governments."

The union, which has 211,779 members, called for an immediate review to prevent a repeat of this year's disaster.

"The government's sobering experience over funding must surely make it begin to consider the fundamental basis of a system which has produced so many anomalies and contradictions," said O'Kane.