YESTERDAY, we admitted to being non-plussed by Education Secretary Charles Clarke's allegation that £3.7m is missing in Worcestershire County Council's accounts when the Local Education Authority insists it's been allocated over the next financial year.

Today, we learn that the same letter also challenged the LEA's decision to spend £4.6m meant for teachers and books on the switch from a three-tier to a two-tier system in Hagley.

Worcester's Labour MP, Mike Foster, is adamant that there were better ways to spend the money - and he's listed them.

Having taken Mr Clarke to task over the inauspicious start to his Education Department reign, today we're bound to say that - on the face of it - the Hagley decision does suggest a curious set of priorities.

While we're less certain of Mr Foster's enigmatic claim that the £4.6m switch keeps "a few well-placed people happy", to Joe Glovemaker it risks weakening the case for the county winning better Government funding. But it still doesn't let New Labour off the hook.

Mid-Worcestershire Tory MP Peter Luff insists Mr Clarke's still trying to pass the buck. At worst, he is. At best, he's laying a smokescreen.

The county's schoolchildren have been short-changed for years, and unjustifiably so.

Mr Luff claims that funding per pupil has grown by 39 per cent in Worcestershire since 1997, compared with a national average of 47 per cent.

If the gulf was closed, as it must be, there'd be less need for County Hall education purse-holders to make "either/or" decisions in the first place.