Brown commits to Blair's reforms with 'personalised' public services

Gordon Brown pledged that he would extend Tony Blair's public service reforms if he became prime minister, including his flagship city academy schools.

The Chancellor committed himself to bringing in more "personalised" state-funded services - including a greater role for private firms and voluntary groups in providing them.

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He said there would be "major announcements" on city academies in tomorrow's Budget. He is likely to reduce the burden of VAT, which deters academies from opening facilities to the public because they would face crippling bills.

Mr Brown is expected to make education his main theme, with a pledge to raise spending per pupil in state schools, currently about £5,000 a year, up to the level in private schools, £8,000. In the past, Mr Brown has been seen as lukewarm about city academies, which are funded by rich individuals or religious groups. Yesterday he embraced them as he sought to pre-empt Tory claims that he opposes reform. He displayed a united front with the Prime Minister as they unveiled the fruits of the cabinet review of public service policies for the next 10 years.

Mr Brown said: "The next stage of improving our public services is personalised services tailored to people's needs. Just as in industry and what we receive from what's produced by industry, people want goods and services tailored to their needs, so too that's the lesson for the future of public services.

"Developing a service that's personalised to the citizen's needs and wishes will take us into exciting new and inventive areas where there will be greater choice, greater competition, greater local accountability."

Mr Brown said the conclusions of the review would "form the basis of the decisions that we will make in the next few months in the comprehensive spending review that is ahead of us".

Mr Blair denied that he was trying to lock his successor into continuing his reforms, saying the document was not a "manifesto". The Prime Minister said: "What we want is to keep these basic public service values, which are about access to quality public services irrespective of your wealth, but make sure those are truly personalised services where there's a much greater diversity of provider and the old ways of working are broken down."

The document called for a "service-by-service assessment" of which areas could benefit from private or voluntary sector involvement. It acknowledged that there "will always be some limits" to market forces but included a controversial proposal to allow "potential providers to bid to take over a service if they believe they could provide something better at a more reasonable cost".

The report said the Government should move towards a "level playing field between sectors" - attacked as code for "privatisation" by left-wing MPs and trade unions last night. Specific ideas include allowing private firms to open walk-in GP centres in supermarkets and take over failing schools, adopting and fostering services and street cleansing.

Other proposals include more one-to-one help for pupils, allowing parents to access regular school reports online, posting consumers' views on their experience of public services on the internet and "virtual bills" to show people the cost of services such as GP or hospital treatment. In a concession to critics of the reform programme, the document said: "The Government must listen better to staff and involve them more in planning ways to develop and improve service delivery."

John McDonnell, a left-wing MP who plans to stand against Mr Brown for the Labour leadership, said: "This policy review is an attempt by Blair and Brown to lock in future governments to their long-term privatisation agenda."