Merton’s education chief has challenged a neighbouring council’s leader to condemn its top civil servant for organising a campaign to expand maximum classroom sizes.

Sutton Council's top civil servant, Niall Bolger, insisted his plan to lobby the Government to allow infant classrooms to expand from 30 to 32 children was not discussed “at a political level” by its Liberal Democrat leadership.

But Councillor Peter Walker (Labour), Merton’s cabinet member for education, who last week decried the plan as a “regrettable initiative”, called on Sutton’s leader, Coun Sean Brennan, to condemn Mr Bolger.

Coun Walker wrote to Coun Brennan: “I find it hard to believe that Sutton were not aware that their chief executive was organising this campaign. 

“Unless you publicly rebuke this individual, I and other London councillors... will conclude that this attempt to undermine educational standards in our primary schools, is in fact approved of by yourself and your fellow Liberal Democrats councillors in Sutton.”

In 1998, new legislation was brought in to limit the infant class sizes to 30, but Sutton Council believes the number is not financially viable.

In a letter to his counterparts across London, Mr Bolger called on other London councils to ask Education Secretary Michael Gove to raise the ceiling of infant class sizes to 32 pupils per class.

Mr Bolger said this was necessary to “enable councils to meet their statutory obligations to educate all their young citizens within their financial envelope.

We do not wish to eliminate all parameters for class size, but we consider 32 to be a pragmatic compromise between educational viability and financial prudency.”

Coun Sean Brennan, who did not rebuke Mr Bolger, said: “The position of Sutton Council is clear and straightforward; increasing class sizes is not our policy and that’s why we have invested millions of pounds in expanding our schools.

He added: “Our chief executive was conducting a piece of research on his own initiative, so that democratically-elected politicians can have a proper debate and make sound decisions on how to deal with the crisis of school places in London, Sutton and Merton.”

Niall Bolger's letter to London councils' chief executives:

Dear Colleague,

Primary School Places - Infant Class Size Legislation

All London Boroughs are facing unprecedented demand for additional primary school places. In Sutton we have been analysing the costs to local taxpayers of providing additional infant school places, given the constraints of current legislation.

The Education (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 1998 introduced legislation which means that currently infant class sizes can not exceed 30 pupils. This was introduced at a time when there were surplus places and lower population levels than we currently experience in this country.

The purpose of this letter is to request Central Government to consider raising the ceiling of infant class sizes to 32 pupils per class, in order to enable Councils to meet their statutory obligations to educate all their young citizens within their financial envelope.

We do not wish to eliminate all parameters for class size, but we consider 32 to be a pragmatic compromise between educational viability and financial prudency.

If we take Sutton Council as an example, Sutton has had to fund additional classes for September 2012 to the tune of £7m. Sutton has been expanding primary schools for a number of years and so all easy options to meet demand has been exhausted. This means the marginal costs of expanding schools, increases substantially, annually, from negligible for initial increases to actual costs of £5m for 2012, because of the current legislative constraint.

If, however, class sizes had been expanded to 32, none of this expenditure would have been required – a considerable saving to the public purse and without undue detriment to children’s education.

Sutton currently has 33 schools admitting Reception Age (Year R) children, by adding two to each class, it would have provided over 130 additional places, the equivalent of almost five classes, which would have provided the number of additional classes, required by Sutton. This would, therefore have meant that no building programmes would have been required. This would have seen a maximum increase for any school of 6 per year group for a three form entry school.

We seek support from other Authorities, in taking forward the proposal, that infant class size should be increased to no more than 32 for the pragmatic reasons stated above, that is to provide Local Authorities with flexibility to meet demand for places at a time when capital and revenue budgets are under significant pressure.

I would be very grateful for your views on this proposal and whether you consider this is something that your Authority has considered and whether you would be willing to consider co-operating with Sutton on this approach.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me or Sharman Lawson, Executive Head of Children’s Commissioning and Planning.

Yours sincerely

Niall Bolger Chief Executive

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