COUNTY education bosses are celebrating after getting top marks from Government inspectors.

North Yorkshire County Council's education service was inspected by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) in January.

Their report, which was published yesterday, called the service "effective, well-managed and impressive" and identified no weaknesses.

It makes the department one of the top local education authorities in the country.

Over the past few days, education officers and county councillors have been visiting schools around the county, including Brompton Community Primary School and the new £1.1m Middleton Tyas Primary School, to celebrate the report.

The county's director of education, Cynthia Welbourn, said: "The most pleasing aspect is that the report is strong all round. It is not much comfort if you are good at some things, but not very good at some others.

"It means that all the parents, the grandparents and the carers can all be confident that wherever their child is, we are all doing a good job for them. I think that adds to the real quality of life in the county."

She added that they ach-ieved the top quality report by "mucking in together and wanting the very best".

The report identifies major strengths in all parts of the county council's education work, including leadership, strategic planning, school improvement, special educational needs and work for vulnerable children.

It praises the council for giving high priority to funding school budgets and for keeping its own costs very low.

Inspectors also highlight the fact that North Yorkshire is England's largest county, saying that the service knows its 400 schools and 300 early years settings extremely well.

The council leader, Councillor John Weighell, said the report strengthened his campaign for creating a single unitary authority to cover the whole county following this autumn's possible local government shake-up.

If there is a "yes" vote in the referendum on elected regional assemblies, local government will be restructured.

"The strength of this education authority is that it is very, very large and delivers excellent results over a large rural area," said Coun Weighell.