A ROW over school funding has broken out amid concerns that pupils in York and North Yorkshire are losing out because their areas are considered affluent.

Newly-published figures reveal almost every other local education authority in the country receives more money for teachers, books and computers.

City of York receives only £2,346 per primary school pupil - the second-worst total in England. Only prosperous Poole, in Dorset, fares worse - receiving just £2,325 per pupil.

For each secondary school pupil, North Yorkshire receives £2,978 - the third worst total. This compares to Tower Hamlets (£5,051), City of York (£3,025) and East Riding of Yorkshire (£3,001). In primary schools, Tower Hamlets, in London, gets almost twice as much - £4,155 per pupil - compared with North Yorkshire (£2,499 per pupil) and East Riding of Yorkshire (£2,411).

The leader of City of York, Council Coun Stephen Galloway, said he was not surprised by the figures and called on the Government to create a fairer system of distributing the cash.

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

Supporters of the system say deprived areas need more cash to help them achieve good results.

But councils with the lowest grants claim their pupils are being discriminated against.

They say they are forced to plunder cash from other services to ensure children do not miss out.

Mr Galloway said: "We continue to put additional funding in to education paid for directly by the taxpayer, but it would be a lot fairer if some of our problems were recognised by national government and we got a fairer share of the funding cake which is available."

Chris Metcalfe, North Yorkshire County Council's executive member for education, said: "When we hear the Government talking about education, education, education it's all about pumping the money in to inner city areas where there's shed fulls of money going to support things like city academies."

A Department for Education spokesman said: "Local education authorities with a greater proportion of pupils with additional educational needs will receive a higher level of funding per pupil."

Updated: 10:08 Wednesday, December 22, 2004