A third of children born in Birmingham are to mothers from outside the UK, one of the highest figures in the country.

The city's schools have the highest number of pupils - 29,474 - who have English as a second language, an increase of 1,464 in three years.

These are among startling findings of a Local Government Association report which has called for an extra £250 million to help cities like Birmingham cope with the strain on schools and hospitals from immigration.

The plea from the LGA, which represents councils, was backed yesterday by Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Speaking at a conference in Ladywood, Birmingham, Mr Phillips also praised Tory leader David Cameron for attempting to "deracialise" the issue of immigration.

But he warned that electoral campaigning would be the true test of party leaders.

The LGA's call for extra funding came in its report on the effects of migration.

The report named Birmingham as one of the authorities affected.

Alan Rudge, the city council's cabinet member for equalities and human resources, said Birmingham would need an increase of at least £10 million to cope with the pressure of extra migrants.

"It's reached the point where the majority of services are being affected by it," said Coun Rudge.

"The Local Government Association has estimated a minimum of £250 million is needed, and I think of that Birmingham would need more than £10 million.

"We are talking about very significant sums of money." He added that he was disappointed at the Government's failure to properly keep track of migrant numbers, especially given the amount of data passed to them by local authorities like Birmingham.

"We give them data on things like the numbers of unaccompanied children, the number of children regis-tering in schools, and it seems that this information is not being used," said Coun Rudge (Con Sutton Vesey).

"This Government has had a history of dealing with statistics and information."

Katie Teasdale, policy adviser at the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, said immigration provided economic benefits to the city but there were long term issues.

According to the Labour Force Survey, there were 122,000 foreign workers in the West Midlands last summer - 4.9 per cent of the total workforce.

And in the year since, another 48,000 foreign National Insurance numbers have been registered in the region.

"In the short term immigration is a massive benefit to the economy," said Ms Teasdale. "Obviously employers are very pro-immigration at the moment, because you are getting a type of workforce that's very enthusiastic and and wants to fill the skills gap that the region has.

"It's estimated there's something like 12,000 positions that remain unfilled at any one time in the region because there aren't people around to fill the skills.

"But obviously there are long term concerns, because firstly you have got issues about how many are going to stay and whether it's sustainable.

"And also there are the issues around how it's going to affect public services and employment.

"In time there will be an issue of whether we have a commitment to the substantial number of unemployed people in the West Midlands."

In his speech, Mr Phillips said: "When our infrastructure creaks, apparently because of unexpected new arrivals, it exacerbates inequality, and this has a collateral impact on community relations, leading to fragmentation and segregation."

Last night the Government said it accepted migration could place a strain on local services, but pointed out that it had already increased overall council funding by almost a billion pounds.