GOVERNMENT ministers today handed Lancashire's education department a £25million spending increase -- but councillors immediately claimed it was not enough.

About £130 per pupil will be made available in Lancashire, equating to a 4.91 per cent rise on last year.

In total, Lancashire will receive £530million to spend on education.

But the man in charge of education at Lancashire County Council, Coun Alan Whittaker, today said he was 'disappointed' by the increase.

Much of the increase will be used covering inflationary costs and teacher pay settlements rather than improving facilities.

Coun Whittaker said: "We are examining the implications for Lancashire.

"It is early days yet. It would seem, however, that we and other authorities in the North West have not fared as well as we had hoped.

"However, our priority will be to ensure that schools continue to have the resources they need to maintain their high quality education provision for Lancashire children."

Blackburn with Darwen Council will receive £79million to spend on education next year, a rise of 4.68 per cent on last year, or £3.54million.

The money is the amount the Government believes the authorities need to spend on education over the next 12 months and makes up part of the Standard Spending Assessment which allocates cash to every council each year.

Blackburn with Darwen Council will receive nearly £146million to spend on all its services.

Coun Gail Barton, executive member for resources, said it was too early to say whether the Government contribution would lead to a council tax rise.

She said: "We need to understand the overall detail, especially since further resources in respect of education and social services may be available by way of specific grants.

"Our overall increase for mainstream funding of services is about 4.5per cent, but this needs to be seen in relation to the additional pressures and customer demands placed on front line services, in particular education, social services and highways.

"We will now start to develop our detailed budget, which will be agreed in early March next year."

Lancashire County Council will receive £875million, a five per cent rise on last year. A county hall spokesman said the money was due to be discussed at today's meeting of the cabinet.

The spokesman added: "It is too early to say what the likely impact on Council Tax is likely to be.

"This is, however, a disappointing settlement for the County Council because, although we will receive a five per cent year-on-year increase, ours is the lowest settlement of any county council in the country and it is possible the funding may not meet all the demands placed on the authority.

"A paper giving more information on the detail of the settlement will be presented to the county council's cabinet tomorrow."