EDUCATION bosses have told government officials to "come down and look at our books yourselves" following claims that money is being held back from schools across Bourne-mouth.

The Department of Education is due to publish figures appearing to name local education authorities across the country failing to pass on all cash given them to their local schools.

But LEA chiefs in Bournemouth and Dorset claim that these figures are flawed and won't show a true picture.

They argue the figures are hugely inflated because they had to tell the government about their spending plans before they'd had time to allocate the cash.

In his speech at the NASUWT conference in Bournemouth last week Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke, stated that LEAs nationally are "hiding" £500m from schools.

He said that his department is currently analysing figures from the country's 150 LEAs, as requested by the Local Government Association, to compile details on how each council is spending its money on schools.

Such is the outcry from head teachers and governors about the current schools funding crisis, Prime Minister Tony Blair has agreed an investigation be carried out.

Director of education at Bournemouth, Pratap Deshpande, said: "We are throwing the gauntlet down. We are so confident of the fairness of our schools funding in Bourne-mouth, that we invite the government to send its own technical experts to examine our books.

"Our suggestion is that they will find that no money has been wrongly withheld from our schools, and in fact that Bournemouth's schools get a good deal from the council - if not from the government."

Peter Illsley, assistant director of educational resources at Dorset County Council, said: "Yes, it will look as if we have £3m in standards funding and £900,000 in the schools individual budgets left over.

"But in reality it's £1.2m and £600,000, which will be given to schools for booster classes this summer, finance the re-organisation of schools in Shaftesbury and pay for special educational needs.

"The DfES deadline was set before we'd had time to allocate everything. A few more days would have made all the difference."

Mr Deshpande was also scathing of a report in a national newspaper yesterday indicating Bourne-mouth was about to be "named and shamed" by the government for holding back excessive funds.

"The Times did not approach us for any information," he said.

A DfES spokesman confirmed they had not given information to the paper.