COUNTY council Conservative leader Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart has launched a scathing attack on reports that the Government intends to scale down the role of education authorities by giving schools virtually complete control over their budgets.

Sir Sandy used his first speech as the newly-elected chairman of the Local Government Association to denounce proposals, which if implemented, could leave councils with a much-reduced role in education funding.

The proposals are said to be a key feature of the Government's five-year plan for education, which is due to be announced tomorrow.

Reports suggest that ministers want schools to be freed from the grip of local education authorities and to have far greater autonomy over their finances. Popular schools are also likely to be given the chance to expand even if there are surplus places at others nearby - a reversal of existing policy.

But Sir Sandy said that schools needed to be freed from the grip of central government and issued a direct challenge to the Prime Minister to spell out why he thought councils had too much control.

KCC's education budget is more than £700million and accounts for the lion's share of its £1.3billion budget but the bulk of that is handed directly to schools.

Speaking at the Local Government Association Conference in Bournemouth, Sir Sandy said: "It is the Government which is gripping local schools and local councils that are restricted by all the government's different funding streams. Local councils are supporting schools with the services they want. We must oppose any centralisation of schools funding so we can continue to support schools."

It was the Government's own policies that had deprived schools of greater freedom he added, by making them bid for ring-fenced grants and by allowing admissions issues to be determined by a national Quango in the form of the Schools Adjudicator, he added.

Sir Sandy, who is the first Conservative chairman of the LGA, also called for councils to be given much greater powers and urged the Government to embark on a process of radical decentralisation to help spark a renaissance in local government.

There should be a cull of the army of unelected and unaccountable "quangos, task groups, unco-ordinated initiatives and multi-agency partnerships," he said.

He added: "The rise of the Quango state has reached a peak. A bonfire of quangos, agencies and task groups must start now."