Ministers 'ignored objections to publish faulty list'

The Department for Education was told the list needed to be seen by local authorities before it could be released to the public, according to Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnerships for Schools (PfS).

PfS is the body responsible for overseeing the 55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which was axed by Education Secretary Michael Gove earlier this month.

Mr Byles told the Commons Education Select Committee yesterday there had been "a number of misunderstandings circulating around the handling of the Secretary of State's recent announcement on BSF."

More than 700 secondary schools which had not yet had funding signed

off for their building works saw projects cancelled by Mr Gove.

The cuts included more than 80 schemes in the region across Bradford, Doncaster, Kirklees, North East Lincolnshire, Rotherham and Wakefield.

The Education Secretary was criticised over his handling of the

situation after it emerged the initial lists of affected works

contained errors.

Mr Byles told the cross-party group of MPs: "When we were asked to provide detailed lists of all schools, both those in procurement and those in pre-procurement, we advised the department that it would be wise to validate this information with each local authority, prior to publication, due to the inherent risk of errors.

"This advice was not followed and a number of errors arose."

Mr Byles also admitted that an error which saw several schools in Sandwell, West Midlands listed as continuing, only later to be informed they had been scrapped, was PfS's fault.

The mistakes in the list of cancelled projects included the claim that building work at RM Grylls School, in Liversedge, would need to be halted when the school had already closed.

A Liberal Democrat Kirklees councillor is to put a motion forward at a meeting today condemning the cuts and challenging the Government to provide a new way of rebuilding schools.

Coun John Smithson's motion says: "The decision has been taken too quickly with no consultation or consideration of the impact it will inevitably have on the future viability of schools, teaching and learning in Kirklees.

"As with other education legislation Mr Gove has championed, there is an indecent haste about it reflected in the error-strewn announcements he has made."