Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary and potential Labour leadership contender, suffered a double blow today when his department was officially rebuked in a row over government spin and truancy rates rose to a record high.
The Statistics Commission said that the release by Mr Johnson's department of poor primary school results on the same day as more positive GCSE figures could restrict public debate because of the sheer volume of information released.
In future, the commission recommended that the results be released on different, set days.
The rebuke came as the Department for Education and Skills released figures showing that more primary school pupils have been playing truant from English schools, in spite of a Government campaign to reduce unauthorised absences. The overall truancy rate rose, although it fell slightly in secondary schools.
The double blow allows critics to challenge Mr Johnson's ability and integrity at a time when he is seeking to become deputy leader of the Labour Party and others are touting him as a possible rival to Gordon Brown's bid to move into No 10 after Tony Blair's departure.
Some Conservatives believe that Mr Johnson's image as an English working class hero make him a more formidable rival to David Cameron than Mr Brown.
The English primary school test results were published at exactly the same time - 9.30am on Thursday August 24 - as GCSE results, in a change from previous years when they were released on separate days. The figures showed that the Government had missed its key targets for 11 year-olds and that standards fell in the three Rs among seven-year-olds.
Professor David Rhind, the commission's chairman, also raised the possibility of political interference when he warned that special advisers and senior policy officials must not get involved in decisions about when to release school test results.
This week the Conservatives accused Mr Johnson's officials of trying to bury the bad news of poor primary school results, after the commission released e-mails between civil servants and political advisers, showing a difference of opinion about when the figures should be released.
Some officials wanted the primary school results to be released two days before the GCSE results, while special advisers and senior policy officials "positively wanted" the results out at the same time. The Tories said the affair had the "whiff" of previous spin scandals.
David Willetts, the Conservatives' Education Spokesman, said today that the commission's rebuke showed that education ministers and special advisers had had been cynically trying to hide the fact that reading standards in primary schools had declined.
He said he was particularly concerned about the behaviour of the department's special advisers. He asked: "Did political advisers act on their own or did their actions reflect the view of ministers? If so, which ministers were they? Either political advisers were out of control or ministers were interfering in what should have been an independent decision on the release of statistics. Alan Johnson needs to answer these important questions."
Mr Willetts said that he was writing to the permanent secretary at the DfES to ask what steps he had taken to establish what went wrong, and to discipline the political advisers who infringed the code of conduct.
A spokesman for the DfES said that the commission had confirmed that the Chief Statistician took the decision to publish the results, and that publication took place at the earliest opportunity, as set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice.
He added that the department would consider the commission's recommendations about whether its published procedures could be improved.
In his letter to David Bell, the permanent secretary, Professor Rhind said it was not enough for decisions on release dates to be taken by the department's most senior statistician. "That person must be fully protected from pressure from anyone else - and be seen to be protected," said Professor Rhind.
He said the internal correspondence that the department had made available left the commission with the impression that some senior officials and special advisers believed that their own views on the appropriate date of release for the statistics were a relevant consideration.
By releasing the primary results at the same time as the GCSE figures, some feared that "the simultaneous publication inhibited public debate... not least because of the sheer volume of the two sets of statistics being issued on the same day"
In future, said Professor Rhind, the department must ensure that officials and advisers did not get involved in discussions or comment on the desirability of specific release dates.
Five years ago, Jo Moore, special adviser to the then transport secretary, Stephen Byers, emailed colleagues at the Department of Transport to suggest the events of September 11 provided a good day to bury bad news.
The DfES's figures showed that pupils missed 0.79% of school sessions through unauthorised absence in 2005-06. This was 0.01 percentage points higher than the final figures for the previous school year.
Total absences from school, including agreed holidays and sick days, also rose for the first time since 2001, the figures showed.
Jim Knight, the schools minister, said the rise in unauthorised absences was "disappointing" and promised to keep up the pressure on schools and local authorities to improve attendance.
