Gordon Brown has vowed to speed up the modernisation of the public services, indicating there will be no "backtracking" on reforms introduced by Tony Blair.

The prime minister said Wednesday's Budget would begin a new chapter of the government's reform programme.

Writing in Monday's Financial Times, he said public services had moved from below average in 1997 to above average.

The "third stage" of the reform programme would not only bring about more choice but help service users and professionals drive up standards, he said.

"In 2008, the public rightly expect ever-higher quality of public services more personal to their need - from general practitioners open in the evening and at weekends, and one-to-one tuition for children, to personal budgets for social care and police known personally to local neighbourhoods.

"So there can be no backtracking on reform, no go-slow, no reversals and no easy compromises."

Brown promised faster growth of academies - a key education policy under Blair - and described plans to give "superheads" a bigger role to make sure that "every one of the 600 remaining underperforming schools becomes an improving school".

Schools secretary Ed Balls and chancellor Alistair Darling will announce the measures this week, he said.

Work and pensions secretary James Purnell will lead "the same assault on underperformance on welfare", he said, with greater individualisation of services and more private and voluntary sector provision.

The prime minister also said health secretary Alan Johnson was extending choice in hospitals and GPs' surgeries, while communities secretary Hazel Blears would set out plans to give citizens more control over local services.

He wrote: "So this is my approach to achieving excellence: no tolerance of underperformance, giving users of public services more choice and, crucially, a new recognition that real and lasting change must come from empowering the users of services themselves, with professionals and government playing a supporting role.

"And all of this is possible, even in a more challenging global economic environment, by a long-term commitment to investment as well as reform in our public services."