Gordon Brown's social mobility czar is set to brand Labour’s attempts to bring more working-class pupils into top universities a failure.

In a report to be released next week, Alan Milburn, the Blairite former health secretary, is expected to warn that too few bright teenagers from poor families are winning places at leading universities.

The main reason he is likely to identify is the sub-standard education provided by too many state schools, meaning bright pupils are held back from winning good enough A-level grades.

Others are deterred by negative advice from staff who guide pupils into low-skilled jobs, assuming they are unsuited to higher education. In addition, much of the £400m spent by the government on schemes to attract more students from deprived backgrounds has been wasted.

Milburn, who has announced he will retire from parliament at the next election, was commissioned by the prime minister in January to report on ways in which more young working-class adults could win jobs in professions such as the law, medicine and teaching.

The panel he chairs is likely to conclude that one of the main brakes on social mobility into the professions is slow progress in increasing the number of students from deprived families. Figures released last month showed a slight fall in the proportion from these groups studying at university.

The government spends hundreds of millions of pounds on university schemes to attract such candidates and help them through the admissions process. This costs about £10,000 per person, but it is thought many of those who apply would do so regardless of special initiatives.

The report is expected to condemn “positive discrimination” whereby some universities give preferential treatment to any applicant from a poorly performing school.

At the same time, however, Milburn is understood to praise more targeted methods. One his panel favours is used by some medical schools - talented pupils from deprived backgrounds can be offered degree places if they achieve lower grades than other candidates, but only if they pass aptitude tests.

Lee Elliot Major, research director of the Sutton Trust, a charity promoting social mobility, said Britain was in the grip of an “education freeze”.

“Even when the economy is doing well, children from poorer backgrounds are still only half as likely to attend university as those from more privileged families and even this could understate the problem,” he said.

Milburn’s panel - whose members range from Baroness Shephard, the former Tory education secretary, to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society - is expected to cite evidence that state school pupils perform at least as well at university as those from independent schools who have scored two grades higher at A-level. This implies that they have been held back by their schools from achieving their full potential.

The findings, which will be seen as an indictment of Labour’s education policies, are likely to anger senior figures such as Ed Balls, the schools secretary. Many in the Labour party have blamed ingrained snobbery at universities for shutting out working-class pupils.

Geoffrey Vos, chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation and a member of Milburn’s panel, said: “Raising the aspirations of pupils ought to be utterly uncontroversial, but it is not always happening.”

Milburn’s report, which has not yet been completed, will focus largely on what the professions themselves can do to widen the social mix of new recruits. It is likely to include steps to pick apart the networking advantages enjoyed by middle-class children. Posts for unpaid work experience and internships, for example, should be filled by formal selection processes rather than word of mouth.

Meanwhile, undergraduates studying for professional degrees should be recruited to a national mentoring network for comprehensive pupils. This would make them more likely to consider going into the professions in a way that those at private and grammar schools instinctively do.

One source said Milburn wants his recommendations to have cross-party support so they have a chance of surviving if the Tories come to power. He is anxious not to alienate middle-class parents worried that children at private and grammar schools will be edged out of leading universities.

“Universities have to be carefully nuanced and not attack private schools,” said the source.

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