A FRESH breakthrough in Worcestershire's poor school funding could be around the corner, it has emerged.

Top Whitehall civil servants held confidential talks with campaigners last week about giving the county another schools cash boost.

The negotiations, which included members of the f40 campaign group (the worst funded authorities in the country), led to officials doing a set of complicated calculations about a possible "substantial" percentage uplift in cash for the county.

Last April the government agreed to shake up its school allocations which gave Worcestershire an extra £6.7 million for 2015/16 as part of a £390 million boost to the UK's worst-funded local education authorities.

But pupils in neighbouring Birmingham still get more than £1,000 a year extra per head that Worcestershire, and at the time the Coalition suggested it would need more time to reduce the disparity further.

Redditch MP Karen Lumley said there must be a level playing field for all young people.

“There has been a great deal of progress on securing fairer funding since the last election," she said.

"Redditch’s schools have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years. "We now boast some of the best performing schools in the county and have more outstanding and good schools than ever before - there’s never been a better time to go to school in our area.

The MP added: "In total more than £8.6million of extra funding has now been ploughed into Redditch schools since 2011.

"It’s genuinely exciting to think just what could be achieved once funding for our schools has been brought in line with other areas. My colleagues and I will be working hard to achieve this and get the best for our young people.”