Boris aide: Run schools for profit

State schools should be run for profit by private companies, a senior aide to London Mayor Boris Johnson believes.

Sir Simon Milton, the Mayor's adviser on planning and housing, said today that opening state schools up to market forces should go hand in hand with moves to make it much easier to sack incompetent teachers.

And he called for schools to "sweat" their assets by hiring out their buildings and facilities during the holidays.

Sir Simon, who is also head of the Local Government Association, said the national teachers' pay scale should be scrapped so that good staff could be paid more than ordinary ones.

In remarks that infuriated the teaching unions, Sir Simon said of privatising state schools: "I have no difficulty with that idea. My view, and the LGA's view, is that councils are not meant to run schools any more."

Instead, town halls should buy education services from whichever provider they thought best suited to supply them, he added. Then authorities should monitor their progress.

"The future is to have different types of school to ensure there is real parental choice," Sir Simon said in an interview with The Times, although he ruled out allowing them to select by academic ability. Currently, even city academies are not allowed to make a profit for their commercial sponsors. Outside organisations brought in to turn around failing education authorities, such as the Learning Trust in Hackney, are not-for-profit charities.

Sir Simon's break with official Tory policy that profit-making should not be allowed in state education could be an embarrassment for both Mr Johnson and party leader David Cameron.

His remarks forced shadow education secretary Michael Gove to slap them down, saying: "The money we spend on education should stay within education." He said more private firms should be allowed to run state schools - but only on condition they recycled excess cash back into those institutions.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers' union, said: "Sir Simon's comments suggested that the sector would face massive upheaval under a Tory government. State education is about social justice and protecting the weak, vulnerable and disadvantaged. If you make all that subject to profits, you will be throwing the public service ethos out of the window."