PARENTS would be given more control over their children’s education, with the “ultimate sanction” of ousting the management of failing state schools, under plans being unveiled next week in Labour’s election manifesto.

The proposal is designed to correspond with similar measures for expanding the private and voluntary sector’s role in the NHS, as well as giving people more say in the operation of police and local authority services. Tony Blair believes the radical nature of such third-term reforms will show that the scale of new Labour’s ambition remains undimmed after eight years in government.

The manifesto is understood to have been agreed with Gordon Brown in unexpectedly trouble-free negotiations over recent days. This reflects an apparent rapprochement between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. Friends deny there is any formal succession deal, but Mr Blair is privately acknowledging Mr Brown as his heir apparent.

Although most of the policy platform has been announced previously, the “parent power” plan goes further than last summer’s five-year education plan. This had proposed allowing the private or voluntary sector to take over management of failing schools put into “special measures” by Ofsted inspectors.

In February David Bell, the Chief Inspector of England’s schools, said that 332 — 1.5 per cent of the total — were in “special measures”. This figure is almost double that for last year. Labour’s manifesto will now promise that “parental satisfaction surveys” should also be one of the key determinants of judging whether a school is failing.

Groups of parents will be given the chance to apply to run the school and appoint a new head teacher. Teaching unions and local council leaders have expressed reservations about these “independent specialist schools”. The policy is based on a similar system in Sweden where parents have set up schools and taken over responsibility for running others.

Ministers say that closure of a school or the replacement of its management should be only the last resort. Instead, they want parents to be more closely involved in their children’s education by giving them e-mail addresses for teachers and more places on school governing bodies.

Labour’s manifesto announcement next week will be followed by the distribution of a condensed “minifesto” version to millions of homes. The party believes that it has to bypass a hostile media, the ranks of which will be swelled today by the left-wing New Statesman magazine urging readers to give Mr Blair a “bloody nose”.

Other policies will include further use of the private sector in the NHS, particularly in diagnostics, as well as giving communities more power to take over local authority services and hold police forces to account.

Labour will guarantee that there will be no extension of academic selection in state schools and that equal access to NHS care will remain free at the point of delivery. John Reid, the Health Secretary, has already assured unions that he does not foresee the proportion of NHS operations being performed by the private sector rising above 15 per cent.

Downing Street was keen to highlight the significance of Mr Brown’s return to the heart of Labour’s campaign.

Friends say the manifesto-making process has been free of acrimony and that the Chancellor’s attitude has been highly co-operative. Mr Blair has told friends that Mr Brown has been wrongly portrayed as “old Labour” and that if he were to succeed him, he would follow his radical, reforming path.

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