Consultants today recommended that a private company take over the management and provision of education in Bradford.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers, employed to find a way forward following the damning Ofsted report on the district's local education authority (LEA), also recommended that education be supervised by a school improvement board made up of "key stakeholders".

But it is unlikely to include many councillors and it appears as if the council's Conservative and Liberal Democrat leadership have lost their battle with the Government to retain significant control of education in Bradford.

Schools standards minister Estelle Morris unveiled the way forward for Bradford's education at a meeting of head teachers in the city today.

The consultants say that public accountability will be maintained through a "strategic partnership" between the Council and the private sector partner.

The partnership would be characterised by:

*High external partner involvement

*The majority of services delivered to schools, pupils and students by an external partner

*Strategic management delivered by an external partner

*School improvement board representing 'stakeholders'

*A significant proportion of LEA staff transferring their contracts to the external partner

The consultant's service review, carried out over the last three weeks, finds that: "Serious weaknesses exist within the service provided by the LEA.

"The main advantages of the strategic partnership are the capacity to harness best practice form the private and public sector aimed at school improvement, substantial external partner service delivery to address key weaknesses within the LEA and the introduction of a clear step-change in service delivery and break with the past.

"There is a clear need for significant management and support arrangements within the LEA to ensure an acceptable standard or service is available until the adoption of an alternative service delivery model."

The findings were presented to head teachers from across the district by schools standards minister Estelle Morris in a private meeting this morning.

But unions were excluded, leaving one local leader who turned up to the meeting in Bradford fuming.

Joint Bradford secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, Stuart Hirdson, said: "We were told yesterday that the minister was frightened of meeting the unions. What on earth is she frightened of?"