Government ministers have answered Durham County Council's plea not to cut its education funding.

The Labour-run authority made an appeal to the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) when ministers announced proposals to slash £1.2m from its funding for the coming financial year.

A reduction was proposed because the funding of adult education provision is being taken over by the new Learning Skills Councils (LSC) in April.

Because the council only spent £55,000 on the service, the reduction would have eaten into other education services in the county, including school transport provision and special needs facilities. Now the county council has been told it will receive an extra £1.4m, on top of the £2.76m it has been awarded, to ease the pressure of the low education budget settlement.

The leader of Durham County Council, Councillor Don Robson, said: "We are delighted that the Government has agreed that we should receive this money. We put what we felt was a very good case to the DfEE for not reducing our budget, and they have listened to us and changed their mind.

"It means that not only will the partnership between ourselves and the LSC be able to get off to a good start, but we will also have more money to spend on education services overall. Schools, in particular, will benefit, because we will be able to take up more standard fund grants. It is a double boost for us.''

Olivia Grant, who chairs the county's Learning and Skills Council, said: "We are pleased the reassessment of funding at national level has led to this increase and reinstatement of the money.

"It is obviously a concern of the Learning and Skills Council to work closely and effectively with the county council and the communities in Durham, to make good use of the money designed to help adult and community learning.'