T HAS always struck us as blatantly unfair that schools in York should be so disadvantaged by the way funding is allocated.

Under the complex formula devised by the Department for Education, state schools in York were among the worst off in the country in terms of cash allocated per pupil. It amounted to a postcode lottery, in which York came out near the bottom.

This severely affected the number of teachers and teaching assistants York schools could afford to employ - with an obvious knock-on effect on pupils.

The city’s schools have by-and-large managed to do remarkably well, regularly posting some of the best GCSE and A-level results in the country.

That, however, has hidden a worrying underlying problem - the gap in school attainment between children from better-off families in York and those from the poorest families. Despite efforts to close that gap, it continued to grow.

The Conservative government has long been promising a review of the funding formula, to ensure that the funding system became fairer. Education Secretary Justine Greening told MPs earlier this month that the new formula would represent the biggest improvement in school funding for decades.

York Outer MP Julian Sturdy hailed it a ‘victory for York schools’.

It comes as a huge disappointment, therefore - not to mention a considerable embarrassment for Mr Sturdy - to learn that, under the new formula, York is not only near the bottom of the league table in terms of per-pupil finding - it is actually plumb last.

This situation hopefully won’t last. The new formula means poorly-funded schools will gradually ‘catch up’ between now and 2020.

That’s some comfort. But in the short term York schools could be forgiven for feeling cheated