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Michael Gove's department for education was to blame for the publication of a faulty list of cancelled school building projects, according to the official responsible for the axed programme.
Appearing before the Commons education committee this morning, Tim Byles, the chief executive of Partnerships for Schools, the quango tasked with implementing Labour's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme, said he had warned Gove's department that the list needed to be checked.
In a statement at the start of the session Byles said there had been a number of "misunderstandings" around the scrapping of Building Schools for the Future that he wanted to clear up.
Gove's announcement that around 700 school building projects would be frozen was met with confusion after initial list of schools affected was found to contain several errors.
"When we were asked to provide detailed lists of all schools…we advised the department it would be wise to validate this info with each local authority prior to publication due to the inherent risk of errors," he said.
He added: "This advice was not followed and a number of errors arose."
Byles told MPs: "Further lists were produced by the department on July 6 which again contained errors and the validation exercise with local authorities was then completed by Partnerships for Schools and the department, with final lists produced on July 12."
But he did acknowledge that his body had been at fault for telling some schools in the West Midlands that their projects had been rescued, only to later discover they were to be scrapped.
"Partnerships for Schools is entirely responsible for an error in Sandwell schools, and I apologise in full for that," he said.
Giving evidence immediately after Byles, former education secretary Ed Balls offered his congratulations to the committee for securing information he had been unable to.
"For three weeks I've been asking in the House through points of orders through written questions whether or not it was the case the secretary of state was advised not to go ahead with the publication of the list before validation," he said.
"I have had absolutely no answer for three weeks, in your first committee hearing you manage to get an answer from Mr Byles."
Balls condemned Gove's decision to scrap the BSF program and condemned the "totally chaotic way" in which it was made.
"To be fair to the new coalition, they are trying to achieve educational transformation through a different means, not through collaboration and investment but through the operation for competitive market forces and I think that is very foolish.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the most important thing which delivers education transformation is teaching in the classroom.
"You can have a great building and poor teaching, of course.
"But it is also the case that it is very hard for a great leader with great teaching, first of all to attract great teachers, and to boost the aspiration of children if they are doing so in third class facilities.
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