Council education staff in York received another accolade today as they were awarded national recognition for their work.

City of York Council was one of only three across the country to be given "Beacon Status" in education, meaning it will be held up as an example of excellence to other councils.

The granting of the status today, for "raising educational attainment", was made by Local Government Minister Hilary Armstrong. It follows the council's successful Ofsted report last year and its Beacon Award for housing.

Chris Edwards, acting director of education, said the news was particularly good for an authority which was one of the poorest funded in the country.

Councillors are tonight due to grapple with next year's budget proposals, which already meant schools looking at a £148,000 reduction in their funding, even before the announcement of the teachers' 3.7 per cent pay rise last week.

Mr Edwards has written to education secretary David Blunkett protesting about education funding for York being "unfair" and calling for more resources for the city's 25,000 pupils, their teachers and staff.

He said: "We are the poorest funded local education authority in Yorkshire and Humberside and our funding is 40th out of 46 unitary authorities across the country, yet clearly we are a centre of excellence. Achieving Beacon Council status is a remarkable achievement for a small, poorly-funded authority and is further recognition of our success as a team.

"This award recognises and celebrates officers' work and the work of everyone who works with us in this wonderful city; from headteachers, staff and governors to officers, elected members and our local, regional and national partners."

Mr Edwards also paid tribute to Coun Janet Looker, executive member for education, and to the late Coun Peter Dodd, who was vice-chairman of the old education committee. The work which earned York the award included helping pupils who had been expelled from schools to move on to education, jobs or training, on cutting truancy and expulsions, work with travellers' children, with teenage girls who get pregnant and on the city's work-related learning programme.

Chief executive David Atkinson and acting assistant director of education Murray Rose were travelling to Croydon with Mr Edwards to receive the award today.

Updated: 14:56 Tuesday, February 06, 2001