Hit squads of high achieving heads and teachers will be sent into underperforming schools, under Budget measures to raise standards.

The Chancellor Alistair Darling yesterday gave local authorities until the summer to come up with individual action plans to turn around the 638 worst performing secondary schools.

Mr Darling said that £200 million would be made available to extend the successful six-year-old City Challenge plan beyond its existing areas of operation in London, Manchester and the Black Country to the whole country. It will now be known as the National Challenge.

While the £200 million is not new money (it comes from underspending in other areas), the summer deadline for action plans is, and will focus the minds of authorities on the government’s aim of eliminating all underperforming schools.

Background

• Darling's first Budget: the main points

• The Chancellor's speech in full

• Darlings first Budget: the reaction

• Chancellor hits the home budget as his debts soar

• Need to know: Budget 2008

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• The winners and losers

Rose-tinted specs fail to offer hope

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Over the last ten years, there has been a fall from 1600 to 638 in the number of schools failing to meet the minimum performance threshold of 30 per cent of pupils gaining GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and Maths.

Gordon Brown has said schools that fail to meet the new threshold could be closed or merged unless they improve. And ministers are now determined to speed up the pace of change.

Mr Darling said the target of bringing all schools above the 30 per cent threshold would be brought forward by one year.

“By 2011, we will ensure that every school is an improving school meeting the standards we have set,” he said.

Mr Darling hopes to achieve this in part through the National Challenge scheme, which arranges for high-flying heads, deputies and heads of department to be parachuted into underperforming schools to bring them up to the government’s standards.

The scheme will help link poorly performing and high-achieving schools through the formation of federations or trusts, grouping together clusters of local schools, to share expertise and facilities.

It will also push for underperforming schools “in areas of greatest need” to be turned into Academies, or independent state schools, Mr Darling said.

This would help “drive forward a faster expansion” of the academies programme to achieve the government’s target of 400 academies. Currently there are 83 Academies open in 49 local authorities.

Mr Darling also said the government would contribute £10 million to a £30 million “Enthuse Science” fund run by the Wellcome Trust to provide training for school and college science teachers.

In a separate move designed to give a second chance to adults who left school with no or few qualifications, Mr Darling has also set aside £60 million to help bring them up to A-level standard.

The money will go towards expanding the number of apprenticeships and providing tailor-made training for employers where they have identified skills shortages among their workforce.

The remainder of the cash will be distributed through the means of virtual Skills Accounts for all adults, containing online vouchers, which they can use to buy education or training from a recognised provider of their choice. These will be piloted from September.

The Tories said the Budget measures on education amounted to little more than a repackaging of existing initiatives.

Teaching unions welcomed extra money for struggling schools, but said it was not enough.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said: “Currently, school support is a very top-down process. The government must focus on the long-term health of the school, rather than a quick fix.”

He disputed the government’s claim that there are 638 failing schools, saying that 250 of the secondaries that fall below the 30 per cent threshold are already doing better than expected, given the needs and backgrounds of their pupils.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, called for education funding to be reformed with the introduction of a pupil premium attaching extra funding to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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