RECORD levels of teacher sickness and absence in Derby schools have sparked a cash headache.

Education chiefs have revealed a £1m deficit in a fund which schools can draw on to cover the cost of replacement teachers for staff off sick.

They say there has been huge demand on the cash pool because more staff are suffering from stress, while others have been hit by swine flu.

The deficit has coincided with new legislation which prevents teachers covering for missing colleagues except in an emergency.

The city's pool premium scheme collects money from primary schools to support the cost of supply teachers to cover sickness.

An average-size school of about 250 pupils will pay about £10,000 into the scheme each year.

If the school has to pay out for supply staff, it would have expected to be able to claim this back from the pool.

Any money left over at the end of the year would be distributed evenly between all the schools, which has meant on many occasions they would get nearly all of their £10,000 back.

Figures obtained from the city council reveal that there was a 51% increase in the number of teachers absent in summer 2009 compared to 2008.

Absences in September 2009 were 123% up on September 2008. In October 2009, 57% more teachers were off than in the same month the year before.

The high levels of absence have prompted council officials to act to ensure that the fund does not run dry.

A city council spokesman said: "Based on the money paid out of the fund for the summer term and looking at this term, it was predicted that the fund would be exhausted before Christmas if we didn't act."

Simon Emsley is head teacher of Lakeside Community Primary School in Alvaston, which pays about £9,000 into the scheme each year.

He said: "It is a good scheme and acts almost as an insurance against teachers and support staff being off sick. Most years we have received some of the money back because it hasn't been used up, but it looks like this is about to change."

Out of 76 infant, junior and primary schools in the city, 72 are in the teachers' scheme and 44 in the support staff scheme.

Dave Wilkinson, Derby branch secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: "The autumn term sickness absence for teachers could be the highest on record."

Andrew Flack, city council director for children and young people's services, said: "Our aim is to strive for the wellbeing of our workforce, but this also places extra demands on schools in finding supply staff and on the resources for covering that."