CHILDREN in Leeds receive an education which is in line with or above the national average according to performance indicators published by the Audit Commission.

In six key categories, Leeds continues to perform at a level which is in line with - and frequently exceeds - other metropolitan authorities across the country.

The categories are nursery school places for under-fives, class sizes in primary schools, educational achievement, school meals, special needs education and spending on education.

Councillor Sarah Perrigo, chairman of Leeds' eduction committee, said: "Leeds City Council spends half its budget each year on education because we firmly believe that a good education is the single most important thing we can provide for the city's children.

"These performance indicators, provided by the authority and collated into tables by the Audit Commission, show that Leeds compares well with many other councils," she added.

"Education is one of the Government's main priorities and tables such as this help us to look carefully at how well we have performed in the past and what we will have to do to meet the challenges of the future."

Coun Perrigo said the tables only gave part of the picture because, although they can tell parents the percentage of pupils taking school meals or the percentage of pupils passing five GCSEs, they could not tell parents about the welfare of pupils or how authority's schools deal with issues such as truancy and exclusions.

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