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The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said some senior managers were still enjoying training courses and fact-finding missions – often at top hotels – even though schools are being ordered to rein in their spending during the downturn.

Members have also criticised the continuing use of private consultants who are being paid “exorbitant fees” to give advice to state schools.

A resolution to be debated at the union’s annual conference in Liverpool next week will call on ministers to “stop this misuse of taxpayers’ money” at a time of swingeing public sector cuts.

It comes just a week after the Local Government Association accused the Government of imposing a last minute £155m stealth cut in school funding this year.

Hank Roberts, an ATL official from Brent, north London, suggested that some schools were failing to play their part by blowing tens of thousands of pounds on unnecessary luxuries such as consultants and expensive training courses.

Speaking before the conference, he said: “It’s completely out of order. This is wrong at any time, but especially at this time, this shouldn’t be going on. We are in a time of economic difficulties.”

His motion – to be debated on Tuesday – claims that vital on-the-job training for classroom teachers is being stripped back while “some senior managers attend junkets in expensive hotels”. He will present more details next week.

It emerged last year that nine head teachers had visited South Africa at a cost of £16,000 to the taxpayer.

The state school heads from Rochdale stayed in a four-star hotel during the five-day trip to Cape Town, which saw them visit different schools as part of a “professional development” scheme.

The trip was paid for by the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services – a Government quango – at a cost of £1,773 per person.

In 2009 around 20 British heads visited Mauritius for a three-day trip to attend an education conference.

They were put up in a five-star beach front hotel complete with a golf course, watersports, spas and a beauty salon during a trip that cost £40,000. Individual schools footed the bill.

Mr Roberts’s resolution will also criticise the fees paid to a “small number of private consultants”, claiming that their advice is “sometimes useless or worse”.

Speaking on Friday, he claimed he had been told of a case in which consultants were paid around £1,000 for a day’s work.

In another, they received £700 for an afternoon, he said.

“Education is not a performance-making institution where you can come along with an idea to save money. We’re educators,” Mr Roberts said.

In one case, he said, private consultants were brought in to help with a restructuring. This is something schools and unions can deal with themselves, Mr Roberts said.

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