INFLUENTIAL Tory think tank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) set out a sweeping blueprint for more schools privatisation yesterday in a new report claiming to be about “closing the divide” in education.

The CSJ, founded by social security axeman Iain Duncan Smith, hired a host of advisers including representatives from leading academy schools privateers to draw up a hotchpotch of new policy brainwaves.

Its hit list included a big push for charities to get involved in running free schools, a payment-by-results “national improvement programme” to encourage academy chains to take over schools in “disadvantaged” areas and extra powers for new regional schools commissioners to privatise local management.