EDUCATION bosses have been told to get their act together after producing incorrect figures about pupils' performances for the second time in three months.

Scrutiny councillors - tasked with monitoring the performance of children at Blackburn with Darwen's primary and secondary schools - were left fuming when they were told performance indicators, which showed standards were slipping, were wrong.

It was the second time they had met to study the figures after being told at a meeting in September that some of the figures they were being presented with "did not make sense".

Ian Kendrick, assistant director of education at Blackburn with Darwen Council, has pledged to return to the November meeting of the education overview and scrutiny committee with accurate figures.

But Conservative councillor John Williams said: "If they can't get a simple thing like figures right despite two attempts, how can we be sure everything is going right in our schools?

"It is an absolute disgrace that we are presented with figures which are wrong when it is our job to judge whether things are going well or not."

The blunder came to light when councillors began to quiz Mr Kendrick on three performance indicators which apparently showed a fall in the number of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, and the number who achieved more than one GCSE at A* to G grades.

The first showed the figures slipped from 45 per cent in 2001 to 37.5 per cent this year, against a national average of 45 per cent.

The second showed a drop from 93.3 per cent to 93.2 per cent, against a national average of 95 per cent.

Performances for 11 year-olds in maths and English had also slipped, from 68 per cent to 64 per cent and 73.5 per cent to 70 per cent respectively, against nationally averages of 71 per cent and 74 per cent.

Of the figures, Mr Kendrick said: "I don't why these figures are like they are. The figures I have show we have improved in all these areas, and some of the improvements are among the best in the country."

Councillor Mary Leaver said: "If those are wrong, how can we trust any of them to be right."

Brian Peacock, representing teachers on the committee, said: "The targets according to this show the number of half days missed due to unauthorised absences is expected to rise from 1.35 per cent, to nine per cent in 2003 and then eight per cent in 2004.

"It is obvious the decimal point has been missed out because truancy is supposed to be going down.