MINISTERS face accusations of rigging their new flagship school-building programme to benefit key Labour seats and help the party at election time.
Figures compiled by the Tories show most of the schools built so far have been in Labour-held areas or marginal councils it is fighting to win.

 
 
The research comes after Labour was accused last year of plotting to protect its MPs’ seats from hospital cuts by secretly drawing up “heat maps”.

The figures show that the majority of schools selected to take part in the first phase of the government’s Building Schools for the Future programme are based in local education authority areas where Labour has the greatest number of councillors.

As a result, there have been suggestions that the government is “gerrymandering” education services in both Labour-dominated and marginal seats.

Of the 38 projects for schools in the first three waves of the initiative, 27 are based in councils where Labour is either in control or the largest party. Nine of the authorities are seen as marginal.

This means 70% of the projects have gone to Labour councils, although the party controls only 40% of local education authorities.

David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, said the money allocated by the government looked suspiciously as though it was deliberately targeted at Labour areas.

“We have already seen in the health service evidence of Labour special advisers trying to protect Labour areas. Now it looks as though something similar is going on in education,” said Willetts.

“This programme should be driven by the needs of our schools. It shouldn’t be driven by the needs of the Labour party.

“Gordon Brown can’t have a rhetoric that it is for all schools, when in practice they just put it into Labour areas.”

The education department defended the choices made by arguing that the first three waves of funding were for schools in poorer areas, which are more likely to be Labour-controlled. A spokesman said: “Waves one to three prioritised disadvantaged, deprived areas.”

Willetts insisted the government had not been explicit about targeting the policy at poor areas. “Building Schools for the Future has never been described as simply going to the poorest areas. Gordon Brown, in every budget speech where he refers to it, talks about it as if it is a scheme for rebuilding schools across the country,” he said.

“All local authorities were invited to apply for wave one approvals. They have never said at any stage ‘only local authorities with the following level of deprivation should apply’.”

The Tories’ analysis follows leaked e-mails which showed that last July, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, discussed drawing up a series of “heat maps” aimed at highlighting marginal constituencies where voting may be affected because of proposed hospital closures.