  The imaging spectroscopy capabilities of the Reuven Ramaty high energy solar
spectroscopic imager (RHESSI) enable the examination of the accelerated
electron distribution throughout a solar flare region. In particular, it has
been revealed that the energisation of these particles takes place over a
region of finite size, sometimes resolved by RHESSI observations. In this
paper, we present, for the first time, a spatially distributed acceleration
model and investigate the role of inhomogeneous acceleration on the observed
X-ray emission properties. We have modelled transport explicitly examining
scatter-free and diffusive transport within the acceleration region and compare
with the analytic leaky-box solution. The results show the importance of
including this spatial variation when modelling electron acceleration in solar
flares. The presence of an inhomogeneous, extended acceleration region produces
a spectral index that is, in most cases, different from the simple leaky-box
prediction. In particular, it results in a generally softer spectral index than
predicted by the leaky-box solution, for both scatter-free and diffusive
transport, and thus should be taken into account when modelling stochastic
acceleration in solar flares.
