The unprotected part of the Department for Education's budget could be subject to a £2bn cash grab by the Treasury in the run up to next week's spending round announcement, newspapers have claimed.

According to reports in The Times, with the Treasury struggling to find the £11.5bn estimated savings from across Whitehall, senior exchequer officials are eyeing up the £12.2bn of the DfE budget for 2015 allocated to childcare, pre-school provision and further education.

Set to be £34.9bn by 2015, the schools budget will remain ring-fenced as will spending on health, overseas aid, pensions and military equipment.

Shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, yesterday unveiled proposals to give all state schools in England the same rights as academies – which have been greatly expanded almost tenfold by the coalition since 2010 to nearly 3,000 schools.

Mr Twigg vowed to end the Free Schools programme, while protecting those already granted this status, and announced former education secretary David Blunkett would lead a review into how academies and other schools should work with local authorities.