BOLTON has slipped to the bottom of the class for passing on money directly to schools.

Recent figures reveal that Bolton was the seventh worst authority in the country when it came to giving money from the education budget directly to headteachers.

A few years ago the authority had one of the best records in the Britain for keeping central costs down.

But the spiralling bill for assessing children with special educational needs and keeping them in mainstream schools has meant less money for schools.

Last night Cllr Frank Rushton asked education chiefs to justify why Bolton had slipped to near bottom out of 132 authorities for delegating cash to headteachers - 87.6 pc of the available money went directly to schools.

Bolton heads could get an extra £170 per child if the town hall passed on as much money as top performer Dudley, he claimed.

But education chairman Cllr Don Eastwood told councillors that last year Bolton spent £4 million on statements for pupils with special educational needs and statemented children compared to just £400,000 laid out by Dudley.

He added: "If Bolton's figure was the same as Dudley's we would be delegating 94.5 pc of our budget which would put us in the top three.

"The difference is how much we are spending preparing statements for pupils and keeping them in mainstream schools. This is something the Audit Commission has congratulated us on within the last six months.

"Mostly schools prefer it this way."

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