Teachers' unions reacted angrily today after the Government vowed to press ahead with plans for 200 privately-sponsored city academies.

The academies, which are the Government's flagship policy for improving schooling in deprived areas, were boosted by a consultants' report published today, which shows high pupil, parent and teacher satisfaction with existing academies, although it offers little evidence of improved educational results.

The report from the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) examined the first stages of Tony Blair's £5 billion programme to transform failing inner city schools by creating innovative city academies backed by private money.

It found very high levels of satisfaction with academy principals and optimism about the education on offer. Among parents who expressed an opinion, 87 per cent were satisfied with the education their children were receiving.

But the report showed that of the first 11 academies created only six had managed to improve GCSE results since 2002. Of the three academies that have existed since 2002, giving them more of a chance to iron out teething problems, two have managed to raise the key measure of GCSE results by one or two percentage points beyond the national average rise while the third has actually seen its results fall below those of its predecessor schools.

Publishing the report, Jacqui Smith, the Schools Minister, described it as a "positive endorsement of the academies programme and said the "huge backing from parents and pupils" pointed to the long-term success of the new schools.

She added: "Some people argue that we should progress the programme more slowly. Quite frankly we can't afford to wait. Waiting means condemning a generation of pupils in some of the toughest parts of the country to the failed approaches used in the past.

"We will push ahead with the academies programme so that 200 are open or in the pipeline by 2010. We are confident that the programme will deliver success and this report supports that view."

But teachers disagreed with that interpretation, and pointed to a report published in March by the Commons Select Committee on Education and Skills that questioned the Government's rush to build expensive new academies without proper evaluation of those that already exist.

That report questioned both the capital cost of the new academies - at an average of £25 million, including £23 million of taxpayers' money - and the results they are achieving. It also posed questions about the influence of sponsors, including evangelical Christian groups, and the effect that the new schools were having on existing schools in the area.

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers union, told Times Online: "We seem to reel from one report to the other and all appear to use different criteria to evaluate success or otherwise. I think it's about time that there was now a pause for thought."

She added: "I think what's important for the Government is that it moves forward on a sound basis, and it's not a sound basis to circumvent the House of Commons Select Committee report and then say, 'Here's a report that we've commissioned that is more positive.'"

The National Union of Teachers was equally scathing. Steve Sinnott, its General Secretary, pointed out that in the only two Ofsted inspections of existing academies, one, the Unity City Academy in Middlesbrough, was failed, and the other found to have room for improvement.

Mr Sinnott said: "The Government is publishing an evaluation that fits its bill. It has taken academies outside the requirement to have qualified teachers. It has been blackmailing local authorities into asking for academies. It then suggests that academies are a good thing. There is no proof of that."

The PwC report did list a number of "not insignificant challenges" faced by the new academies, including a "lack of clarity" on the admission of pupils with Special Educational Needs and problems with the physical design of the new schools.

It also found that levels of bullying at the academies was broadly in line with that experienced at their predecessor schools declared by Ofsted to be failing their pupils.

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