EDUCATION chiefs in York have pledged not to touch the amount of money going to schools, despite planned budget cuts of £884,000.

Coun Carol Runciman, the executive member for education on City of York Council, said the amount of money schools receive is quite secure, but that there are some difficult decisions ahead.

She said the main cuts would come from the authority's central education budget, which funds a wide range of services from special needs, peripatetic music teaching and adult education to school crossing patrols.

The authority plans to make savings of £100,000 by administering school transport in-house, which is likely to result in at least one job loss.

There are also further plans to cut £160,000 from the special educational needs service and £100,000 by removing Key Stage 2 class size funding.

A report due to go before Coun Runciman's education and advisory panel on January 11 states that the Government's increase in funding was "disappointingly low", causing "significant difficulties", especially as the proportion of funding currently retained in York by the local education authority (LEA) to fund its central services is the lowest of any similar authority.

In December, the Evening Press reported claims that pupils in York were losing out because their area was considered affluent with City of York receiving only £2,346 per head for primary school pupils - the second worst in England.

This was compared with Tower Hamlets in London getting almost twice as much - £4,155 per pupil.

These huge differences in spending per pupil were revealed in the Local Government Settlement for 2005-06.

The Evening Press also reports today on controversial plans to slash the social services budget by £1.5 million, and councillors warned that without a ten per cent tax increase, service cuts of up to £3 million are on the cards.

Coun Runciman said: "We are not cutting the amount of money going directly to schools in any way.

"We are also trying to protect peoples' jobs and with schools having control of their own budgets, particularly in the area of special needs, although it looks like a big cut schools are getting much more skilled in managing the money they get and we are hoping that any cuts won't make too much of an impact."

The budget will not be finalised until February, after results of a residents' poll on council tax have been counted.

Updated: 10:32 Tuesday, January 04, 2005