THE Prime Minister summed up his priorities early on with the phrase "Education, education, education."

His professed emphasis was on putting more money into our schools to improve resources and lift standards.

Financial carrots were dangled in front of students to encourage the brightest to take up teaching as a career.

But staffing and discipline problems have not gone away.

This weekend we read how the Blackburn secondary school visited by Tony Blair a few years ago and highlighted as a beacon of excellence has been having serious problems.

At Our Lady and St John School, where the head warned in November that government policy on disruptive pupils was a 'recipe for disaster', some youngsters studying for their GCSEs have had seven different maths teachers since Christmas.

Today we hear that a leading county councillor with responsibility for education has written to Education Secretary Estelle Morris to voice concern that a funding shake-up will leave Lancashire schools worse off.

Labour councillor Alan Whittaker says £1.7million that would have gone to schools via the county is being hived off by the Government for the Learning and Skills Council which takes over responsibility for sixth form students studying in schools.

Add to that his claim that government spending increases for Lancashire are 18 per cent below the average for education authorities and Coun Whittaker says the result is a likely reduction in school budgets in real terms.

That's not the 'cost-neutral' effect the government claims especially since new bodies are bound to have their own administrative costs.

And alarmingly no one is even suggesting that more money will be actually going into the classrooms.