EDUCATION bosses were today accused of driving teachers away with pressure and paperwork after it was revealed they had the worst staff recruitment problem in the North West.

Blackburn with Darwen Council, which was awarded Beacon status for improving its schools and runs a prestigious Education Action Zone, is the only authority in the region to receive cash from the Government to help fill its empty posts.

It has been given £270,000 for the next year, which can be used to supplement wages of teachers it wants to keep, subsidise housing or childcare costs, or hire new staff. It's the second year running it has received a payment.

Today, a teaching union blamed Blackburn with Darwen's determination to improve for putting more stress on teachers, prompting them to leave and deterring others from replacing them.

But Ian Kendrick, assistant director for school improvements at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said the council was striving to improve and that did create extra pressure, but he did not believe that was a reason for the vacancies.

The formula for receiving the cash stipulates that only authorities which have more than one per cent of its posts vacant over the last year should receive money.

The NUT said that although one per cent of the authority's 1,500 teachers represented 15 vacancies, the figure was just the tip of the iceberg as people were seconded from non-teaching posts to cover up the gaps.

The authority was one of the first in the country to be awarded Beacon status for its ability to improve its schools.

The borough is also one of the first in the country to have Education Action Zone status, where more money is pumped in to improve schools, and will lead the way with introducing modern technology at several high schools after securing Excellence in Cities status.

Simon Jones, from the Blackburn with Darwen branch of National Union of Teachers, said it was such schemes which were driving teachers away.

He said: "The authority is determined to improve whatever and that is the problem. It is creating too much extra paperwork for teachers. They also carry out more capability tests here, and you are much more likely to be subjected to one here than in larger authorities.

"These tests are designed to assess teachers' abilities, but there is no set criteria and that upsets teachers.

"House prices in this area aren't a problem and the pupils are no better or worse than Lancashire, so the problem has to be the extra pressure here."

Mr Kendrick said the vacancies were down to a number of reasons, but he did not believe pressure was one of them: "The National Union of Teachers will have their own perspective through dealing with their own members."

He said that because the authority was small it took a smaller number of vacancies to take it over the one per cent threshold."

He added: "We are striving to improve our authority and we are known for being a challenging authority. That does bring extra pressures on teachers, and the NUT may have anecdotal evidence to suggest that people have moved as a result.

"But our statistics show that we are not losing people because of that. Our capability procedures are similar to other authorities and we do expect a lot from our teachers.

"We are really pleased to get this money and hope to attract more, highly-skilled teachers to the area."

The council is to hold a jobs fair in March to attract more teachers -- but has shelved plans to recruit teachers from abroad.

School Standards Minister Stephen Timms, announced that £44million would be spent across the country to help schools that face the biggest challenge in attracting and retaining good teachers.

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: "We have no posts empty at present that aren't at least covered by temporary staff."

Blackburn with Darwen is one of 70 authorities in the country to receive the money and one of just eight outside the recognised hot-spot recruitment problem areas of London and the South.