Shadow Children's Secretary Michael Gove has spoken out against £170m of a school refurbishment budget being spent on consultants.

Despite the high consultancy cost, just a handful of schools out of almost 25,000 have seen any improvements or been newly built.

The Freedom of Information figures raise fresh concerns over the efficiency and cost control of the Government’s £50 billion Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which has already suffered from severe delays and escalating costs.

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Mr Gove said: "In tough economic times it is vital that ministers get good value for taxpayers’ money. But under the Government’s bureaucratic school refurbishment scheme, millions has already been spent on consultants with hardly any improvements actually delivered."

Gove stressed that we need a Government that is "able to get more for less".

"Ministers have already increased their costing of BSF by £10bn due to their failure to deliver the scheme on time. At a time when family budgets are more stretched than ever, we simply cannot afford this level of mismanagement in Ed Balls's department."

(CD/GK)