SCHOOLS must not be forced into mergers as part of a £2bn cost-cutting bid announced by the Government, a teaching union has warned.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls said up to 3,000 senior positions, including heads and deputies, could be axed as part of a massive cost-cutting exercise.

Giving the first indications of where spending cuts could hit, he said new “federations” of schools could help shave millions from running costs.

And he warned teachers they would have to swallow pay curbs, but insisted class sizes would not rise and frontline staff would not be affected.

Many of the cuts in “bureaucracy” could be found through natural wastage, he said, but the National Union of Teachers said compulsion would be wrong.

“Any characterisation of heads, deputy heads or even departmental heads as bureaucrats is nonsense. They are teachers,” general secretary Christine Blower said. “Federations between schools may be a good idea, but must not be required as a way to make cuts.”

She continued: “Where we could make savings is to scrap the academies programme with some of its extremely costly buildings and heads who are paid bonuses,” she said.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg branded the proposal “silly” and said it would be “absolute madness” to make any cuts that put young people’s futures at risk.