A top-level inquiry has started after a senior education officer admitted some Bradford schools are breaking the law by unofficially excluding pupils.

Councillor Phil Thornton, the head of a committee set up to scrutinise education in the district, said today he feared some head teachers were deliberately not recording the exclusions to massage their schools' attendance figures.

Education Bradford, the private firm which runs the district's education service, has now been asked to produce a report to Bradford Council's Young People and Education Improvement Committee giving more information on the problem.

The admission was made by Education Bradford's acting strategy manager Jennie Sadowkskyj, who told the committee the organisation was aware unofficial exclusions were taking place in Bradford schools.

However she said that the only way it found out about it was if parents complained to them.

She presented a report which said that both permanent exclusions and fixed term exclusions, where a pupil is barred for a set period of time, had fallen in Bradford schools.

The report said that permanent exclusions had fallen year on year for four years from 117 in 2001/02 to 61 in the last academic year.

It also claimed fixed term exclusions had fallen by almost half from 4,500 pupils in 2003/04 to 2,368 pupils in 2004/05.

However she told the committee she did not know exactly how many unofficial exclusions were taking place.

When pressed by committee members she said it was "not a regular occurrence" but that Education Bradford was aware it had happened "more than once."

Committee's chairman, Coun Thornton,said: "This admission over unofficial exclusions makes Education Bradford's figures a mockery.

"I think it might be far more widespread than they realise. I hope that when the report does come to the committee it sets out some sort of process for how this situation can be monitored.

"Simply acknowledging that there is a problem without doing anything about it is not going to be good enough.

"One way of looking at it is that schools are deliberately doing this to massage their figures.

"Another is that the schools are just excluding pupils unofficially for a quick fix solution which they think is appropriate.

"Whichever it is and whatever the justification schools have, these exclusions need to be recorded. We need to have the whole picture of how many children are out of school."

His call has been backed by Stuart Herdson, the national senior vice-resident and Bradford branch secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

He said: "Sending pupils home can be a very useful tool for modifying their behaviour. If they are worked up then they are disruptive. It is not only the teaching but the other children who will suffer so it can be for the good of the school and for the good of the youngster. If there are unofficial exclusions then they are being done for the right reasons.

"But if one school is playing by the rules and recording them and another school down the road isn't then it isn't fair and it gives the wrong message to parents and Education Bradford."

"I agree with what Phil Thornton says, they should all be recorded. Because we don't know where it is happening and we would like to have the full picture."

An Education Bradford spokesman would not comment whether schools were breaking the rules

He said: "We keep records of parental complaints about schools and sometimes these are about exclusion issues. Where it appears a school has 'unofficially' excluded a pupil, we discuss the case with the school involved."

The Department For Education and Skills website says: "Unofficial or informal exclusions refers to teachers sending pupils home for disciplinary reasons, but nor following the procedures required for formal exclusion. This practice is illegal."

It goes on to say: "Since the Department for Education and Skills collects data on the numbers of school exclusions, teachers could be tempted not to formally exclude in order to avoid the scrutiny that accompanies the process, and to reduce the number of incidents."