Gordon Brown wants to stop state school pupils being the poor relation of the education system. Therefore he pledged to give them similar amounts of money to that which is invested per child in private schools.

He announced: “In the coming five years investment in schools will rise from £5.6 billion today to reach £8 billions a year - a 50% rise”.

But as usual, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

It is vital to put this extra money in its proper perspective. There is a dangerous parallel to the billions of pounds that New Labour has ploughed into the NHS – an amount which dwarfs the new sums being given to schools.

The truth is that much of this NHS investment has, in effect, been poured down the drain - spent on bureaucracy and salaries rather than directly on patient care.

Similarly, it is well recognised that education spending does not all go directly to schools, but is wasted by the system – the vast, endemic and unnecessary bureaucracies of the Department for Education and Skills in Whitehall, and the Local Education Authorities across the country.

To bolster his argument, Mr Brown claimed that private schools spend £8000 per pupil, per year, compared to £5000 spent on each child in the state sector.

In effect, he was saying, the reason they outperform state schools is because they have more money.

But nothing is ever as it seems with this government’s figures, and the apparent £3000 difference is a false alibi for the state sector’s failure.

For start, the evidence shows that a pound spent in a typical private school delivers more education than a pound spent in the state sector. Simply put, private schools are more efficiently run, are more effective, and deliver better value for money.

For example, one recent study showed that in a random four week period, the DfES announced 14 different initiatives and spending pledges.

Money was being sprayed around on projects – but with no regard to the wishes of, schools themselves. Indeed, the running costs of the litany of educational quangos soar further with every passing year. In 2000, Ofsted (the school standards inspection agency) cost £86m. By 2004, its cost had more than doubled to £197m.

The same spiral of spending applies to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which which was set up in 1988 with an annual budget of around £10m, but now costs nearly £60m a year.

The worst waste, however, is elsewhere. Mr Brown trumpeted the fact that he plans to raise direct payments to schools, for headmasters to spend as they see fit, from £98,000 per annum to £190,000.

That is all well and good. It is quite right that money should go direct to schools rather than the bureaucrats. But the sums involved are nothing like enough.

A third of the entire education budget is spent not by schools, but by the DfES and LEAs, supposedly on their behalf.

Meanwhile, in private schools the money from fees goes straight to the school to spend as the governors think best.

The real problem is not money. It is the state system's bureaucracy — the officials of the Department and 150 LEAs, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Teacher Training Agency, and hosts of other central initiatives, panels, and review bodies.

If matching the private sector was the real aim, a first step would be to give state schools the same freedom to manage their affairs as independent schools.

But, as last week’s Education Bill vote showed, that is something Labour MPs will not stomach.

(This has been slightly edited from a version posted earlier.)