Schools in Brighton and Hove expect to be £2 million worse off next year.

Angry headteachers and education chiefs are meeting schools minister David Miliband next week to discuss the cash crisis.

They claim changes on April 1 in the way the Government allocates money to secondary and primary schools have left them short.

The Department for Education and Skills has halved the number of grants.

Brighton and Hove City Council estimates the changes could leave the city with a shortfall of £2 million.

City council chief executive David Panter said: "We've listened to the concerns of our schools and are pleased the minister has agreed to meet with a delegation to enable us to explain our difficulties."

The Government distributes cash to the city council, which calculates how much money schools receive.

Large secondary schools receive about £4 million annually, small primaries about £500,000.

The council also decides on grants to help with specific activities such as literacy strategies or reducing class sizes.

The new scheme means about half of the cash has been put into the general budget pot.

City council assistant director of strategic planning for education Elizabeth Wylie said: "The changes in funding have created winners and losers."

Earlier this month the city's 40 headteachers asked their governing bodies to hand their budgets back to the council in protest at the amounts they were given, meaning the council would have to administer the money.

The city was awarded £183.3 million in December, a 3.5 per cent increase compared to a national average of six per cent.

High house prices and a rise in employee pension contributions mean Brighton and Hove is expensive for teachers and schools have to spend more on higher salaries.

Headteacher at Cardinal Newman School in Hove, Peter Evans, said: "Each school has recognised the financial position is intolerable."

Ms Wylie added: "We do not expect to come out of the meeting with Mr Miliband clutching a brown envelope, but we do hope he will think again about the way money is allocated to schools."