Ed Balls accused of burying bad news on school admissions

Another accusation of burying bad news came back to haunt Labour yesterday, this time involving Children's Secretary Ed Balls.

On Tuesday, official figures were released admitting that more than 100,000 youngsters had been denied a place at their first-choice secondary school this year.

These were immediately overshadowed by an explosive statement from Mr Balls on another subject.

He accused some schools of flouting admissions codes by requiring parents to commit to paying "many hundreds of pounds" per term as a condition of entry.

His claims - based on unverified desk research by his officials - received wide coverage across national and regional media, overshadowing the data on school choices.

Now the Statistics Commission has written to Mr Balls's department warning that the release of official figures should be "seen to be independent from policy comment" as a matter of "public trust".

The news prompted the Tories to claim that the Government had been caught trying to bury bad news.

One headmaster has already accused the minister of throwing up "a smokescreen" to distract attention from admissions figures.

The row has echoes of a spin furore which engulfed Mr Balls's predecessor Alan Johnson in 2006. His advisers were accused of releasing rising GCSE results on the same day as figures showing ministers missed primary school targets.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said both of Tuesday's stories were equally important. But the Statistics Commission said it could not rule out the possibility that coverage of the figures would have been fuller if Mr Balls had not made his statement.