Labour mocked Education Secretary Michael Gove's "failing" policies yesterday after his plans to appoint cronies to oversee free schools and academies were exposed.

Leaked Department for Education documents reveal the schools will be organised into eight regions and overseen by new "headteacher boards."

They will act as a middle tier between government and schools and be led by taxpayer-funded "chancellors" appointed by Mr Gove.

The plan comes in response to a growing number of schools directly funded and overseen by Mr Gove's department.

Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said the plan is Mr Gove's latest admission that his bid to centralise the running of schools has failed.

Mr Hunt said: "The government's aggressive free-market education strategy has not delivered the improvements we need.

"Michael Gove is at last starting to consider following the Labour Party's lead - we have been clear that the Secretary of State cannot run thousands of schools from Whitehall."

But Mr Hunt added that the plans fall short of "real local accountability" and would not have stopped mismanagement at Derby's al-Madinah free school.

Alasdair Smith of the Anti Academies Alliance told the Star that the plan represented "disgraceful cronyism."

He said: "They will be direct appointees of the Secretary of State and there's no democratic accountability of these chancellors.

"It's wasteful and undemocratic and it duplicates the role local authorities already have."

A Department for Education spokeswoman did not deny the plans were true yesterday but would not offer more detail "because it was a leak."

The plan is believed to be inspired by the model of school chancellors in the US, where Mr Gove fled recently to avoid huge teaching strikes.

Unions said handing power to chancellors would further sideline teachers, parents and pupils.

Teaching union ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said: "This proposal creates a whole new layer of bureaucracy with no consideration of how the local community will hold these schools to account."

And NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates warned: "Scrutiny by boards of headteachers, elected by headteachers, will lead only to cosy coteries of headteachers representing the views of headteachers."