Schools 'need private-sector help'

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Leading article: This is not the fight schools need at the start of term

Companies to have more say in schools

Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary, set the Government on a collision course with teaching unions yesterday when she declared that Britain's failing state schools "need" the help of private firms.

Ms Morris's defiant stance, which has the full backing of Tony Blair, will be underlined on Wednesday when she publishes the education White Paper outlining plans to allow the private sector a much greater role in state education. The Prime Minister has refused to back down over the proposals, despite claims from critics that they amount to the "creeping privatisation" of schools.

Unlike the NHS, where public-sector unions have forced a retreat on the issue of private involvement, Downing Street is prepared for a showdown on education. A senior party source told The Independent that part of the reason for the defiance of unions such as the NUT and NASUWT was that they did not help fund the Labour Party. "The plain fact is that we will listen to unions that are part of the Labour movement. But we're not going to take lectures from those unions who aren't affiliated," he said.

The White Paper was due to be released in July but its publication was postponed amid a wider outcry from Labour MPs and unions about public-private partnerships.

However, Andrew Adonis, the Downing Street Policy Unit chief who has written the paper, has been allowed by Mr Blair to retain proposals to use private firms to rescue Britain's worst-performing schools. To make the plans more palatable, private involvement will be allowed only at the request of parents, and successful state schools will also be allowed to take over their failing neighbours.

Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, reassured the big trade unions in a private meeting last week that the role of the private sector in the NHS would be tightly circumscribed.

But Ms Morris made clear yesterday that the Government would not be deterred by union threats from implementing radical change in education. "Some children are not getting a good enough education and that's not a criticism of teachers. It's a tough job and they need more help and support and expertise that the private sector can offer. I'm not going to turn my back on it if it can really help to raise standards," she told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost.

"The biggest threat to public service is actually not to use every tool at your disposal to make it better. We have got to use everything that we can and, if using the private sector helps to deliver a better service and we solve some deep-rooted problems, then I think we should do it."

But Ms Morris's remarks failed to dampen the criticism of union leaders, including John Monks, the TUC general secretary, and Nigel de Gruchy, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers.

Mr Monks warned the Government that any wholesale privatisation of public services would lead to "an extremely strong reaction" from workers. "We've seen what's happened on the railways. People don't like what's happened with London Underground. They certainly won't like the idea of the extension of the private sector in areas like education and health," Mr Monks told GMTV's Sunday Programme.

Charles Clarke, the Labour Party chairman, denied that the Government had plans for "wholesale privatisation" of key services, but did warn that reform as well as resources was the only key to improvement.

* Government plans to increase private sector involvement in the running of essential services risk alienating their own supporters and are out of step with public opinion, a new survey reveals.

Two thirds of the electorate ­ and half of Tory voters ­ want to see health and education provided mostly or entirely by the state, according to a MORI poll in The Times.

Seventy per cent of Labour supporters believe that education should be mostly or entirely provided by government money, with 69 per cent supporting a public-funded health service and 59 per cent wanting to see a renationalised railway network.