Vancouver It was supposed to be a moment of rare joy for those controlling the provincial government's purse strings - the distribution of funds to build school playgrounds in British Columbia. But the process has instead descended into a mire of anger, guilt and recrimination. Education Minister Shirley Bond had a tough week after a barrage of criticism over what probably seemed a good idea at the time. For years, the government had been accused of providing inadequate funds for playgrounds at public schools. This year, however, it handed over C$1 million (HK$7.87 million) to 66 elementary schools for new equipment. Deciding who should get such money is always a tricky issue, so the government headed off any accusations of favouritism by giving the provincial Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils the job of distributing the money. The confederation decided on a lottery to decide on funding. Any school that was part of the confederation (and 70 per cent of schools in the province were) was eligible to apply for grants of up to C$20,000. When John Puddifoot, head of the Parent Advisory Council for Queen Mary Elementary, learned his school had got the C$10,000 it had applied for, he was surprised and pleased. Then the guilt set in. Queen Mary, which is in Vancouver's well-to-do west side and has an active parents' council, recently completed a new C$85,000 playground. The C$10,000 grant was to buy one additional structure. Mr Puddifoot said the council had wrongly assumed that before the funding lottery, schools would be categorised according to their needs. They had thought that schools with no playgrounds would get first priority, then schools with older playgrounds. After receiving the grant, Mr Puddifoot said he and other parents realised that other schools needed the money more. They decided to give the money back. But giving the money to a more needy school was not so easy. The Parent Advisory Council at Queen Mary wanted the money to go to a school that needed playground equipment, but the confederation has simply decided to throw the money back into the lottery pool. 'To start ranking one school's needs over another is a very difficult task,' said confederation president Kim Howland, whose organisation is funded mostly by the government. The confederation does not represent all public schools, with some not joining because they consider the organisation too closely tied to the government. Carole James, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, said the lottery was a terrible idea. 'You'd think that the minister would want more accountability around dollars coming from her ministry,' Ms James said. But Ms Bond said the government had worked with the confederation and let it make the choices. 'They chose a random process,' she said. 'I'm not going to second-guess.' Despite the row, Mr Puddifoot said the fact that the playground grants existed at all was proof that education funding in British Columbia was slowly improving. But it is unlikely that future funding will be decided by a game of chance. Games are probably better left to the playground. Tomorrow: New York