Tony Blair plans to push through big education and health reforms in his final days in office in an effort to secure his legacy.

Once the local election campaign is over, the Prime Minister will make a string of announcements in May and June, including the creation of up to 300 trust schools and an expansion of private treatment centres for the NHS.

The self-governing trust schools, pushed through Parliament with the help of the Conservatives, and the network of private centres contracted to work on NHS patients have been deeply unpopular within the Labour Party. But Mr Blair, who accepted yesterday that he has only weeks to go, has earmarked dates in May to set out the plans, as well as fresh proposals on policy for the family.

Yesterday he called trust schools “secondary schools that are effectively independent, non-fee-paying state schools”, the first time he has used such a description. In a BBC interview Mr Blair said that his legacy would “stand the test of time” and acknowledged that the “final building blocks” of reform were being put in place, words that will irritate the Gordon Brown camp, which is anxious to claim that the Chancellor is as radical as Mr Blair.

The Prime Minister said that decisions over the next few weeks would “secure the long-term changes for the future”. He denied that future policy announcements were aimed at binding his successor but were “doing what is right”.

But with Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, again fuelling speculation of a heavy-weight challenge to Mr Brown, Mr Blair refused to be drawn on any of his possible successors, including Mr Brown and David Miliband.

The Chancellor, meanwhile, enhanced the impression of an impending change at the top by speaking at the weekend of his first meeting with President Bush. Mr Brown said that he had got on very well with Mr Bush at their first face-to-face meeting on Friday.

The “friendly” encounter had not been planned and Mr Bush just “happened to be available to come and see me” during a visit to the White House, Mr Brown added. “We had a general discussion, mainly about trade issues, and I don’t think there’s anything more to add than that.”

The meeting has been interpreted as the US Administration tacitly endorsing Mr Brown as it prepares for life after Mr Blair.

The Chancellor said that any potential challengers should “feel free” to stand against him. He was commenting on an article in which Mr Clarke said he believed that several challengers could garner enough support among MPs to reach a run-off. “A week is famously a long time in politics,” Mr Clarke wrote in The Mail on Sunday. “But, as in the past, the week between Tony Blair’s resignation and the close of nominations for the leadership will be the longest of all. Time and again this short period has turned expectations upside down.”

Mr Blair is expected to announce his timetable for departure on May 9 or 10, leaving office at the end of June or the beginning of July. Yesterday he listed reductions in NHS waiting times, building more schools and tackling antisocial behaviour as some of his main achievements.

Interviewed in Downing Street for the BBC One Politics Show, Mr Blair said: “When you ask the question ‘Will our changes stand the test of time?’, the answer is they will.

“When we came to power, people used to die on waiting lists waiting for their heart operations. People don’t do that any more.”

On education, he said that only 80 schools in the country had 70 per cent of their pupils getting five good GCSEs when the Labour Government came to power in 1997 but “the figure today is over 600”.

He conceded that law and order was an area of “huge challenge” but added: “There is only one Government since World War Two which will end its time with crime down, not up, and that’s ours.”

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