Education Secretary Michael Gove sounded the death knell for Partnerships for Schools as he appointed a new Chief Executive to the Education Funding Agency which will take over delivery of capital spending.

The closure of PfS came just weeks after chief executive Tim Byles stunned the industry by stepping down from his post.

Gove said: “Partnerships for Schools will be wound up and its functions transferred to the Department for Education policy directorates and the new Education Funding Agency (EFA), an executive agency of the Department. My intention is that this will happen in April 2012.

“Following Sebastian James’s proposals for a new system for managing capital expenditure and the wider reform of arms length bodies, I have decided the time is right to bring together, in a single agency, the allocation and management of revenue and capital funding, including the delivery of capital programmes.

“I can also confirm that the post of Chief Executive of the Education Funding Agency will be filled by Peter Lauener, transferring from his current role as Chief Executive of the Young People’s Learning Agency subject to the passage of the legislation necessary to dissolve that organisation.”