MINISTERS have embarked on a damage-limitation exercise to repair relations with religious schools after Ed Balls, the schools secretary, accused many of them last week of demanding money from parents in return for places.

Balls has admitted that the naming and shaming of schools was "stressful", denied he was targeting religious schools and supported the "central role in providing excellent publicly funded education" of faith schools. This Thursday, Jim Knight, the schools minister, is to meet representatives of Jewish schools, nine of which were named by Balls among the 20 worst offenders for breaking the rules, to discuss what changes governors need to make to their admissions criteria.

Balls was accused of "sensationalism" and mounting a "witch hunt" against religious education after research by his officials into schools in Manchester, Northamptonshire and Barnet, north London, found dozens of faith schools were in breach of a code on admissions introduced last year. Transgressions included asking parents for voluntary contributions of hundreds of pounds when applying for places as well as failing to give adequate priority to children in care or those with special needs.

The attempt at reconciliation was made in a letter to Henry Grunwald, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews last Friday, in which Balls said: "I recognise that the public attention this work has inevitably brought has been stressful for some of the schools involved. Our shared objective is for fair admissions to all schools, not to focus on any particular school or type of school." He went on to support the right of schools to ask parents for voluntary contributions "for security and extra tuition" as long as these were kept separate from admissions.

Grunwald replied that he hoped Balls's words would help "allay concerns" but added: "I want you to know that I am not aware of any Jewish school that refuses admission to a pupil because of inability to make such a contribution... for some schools, no more than one third of parents make such contributions."

Many faith schools ask for voluntary contributions to pay for religious instruction outside regular classroom hours, while Jewish ones also ask for payments towards school security.

Joshua Rowe, chairman of the governors of King David high school, Manchester, speaking before Balls sent this weekend's letter, accused the schools department of a "stunt". He said it was unfair to condemn the 2008 admissions policy, which had been designed before the new code came into force. He said officials had simply ignored the school's current admissions policy, which complies with the code and which had been sent to the department when it first raised concerns."Had the government been genuine in its interest to change the arrangements, it should have written to schools six months ago not three weeks ago," he said.

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