"We are working to provide an alternative to paper communication with schools for those who want it," said Mr Blunkett. Instead of mailing out information, an increasing amount of official material will be placed on websites or e-mailed to schools.

David Blunkett wants e-mail to cut school paperwork

Mr Blunkett also announced that there would be less time-consuming systems for handling school budgets and efforts to reduce local education authority bureaucracy.

Paperwork associated with the work of school governors will also be targeted, as the government aims to free up more time in schools.

But the Conservative party claimed that the extra workload was the result of too many interventions from government. If the Conservatives were in power, said Shadow Education Secretary Theresa May, they would "set all schools free and have a bonfire of bureaucracy".

The report into red-tape in schools, published on Thursday by the Better Regulation Task Force, concluded that head teachers face interference from too many officials, have to fill out too many forms and deal with too many different sources of funding.

Interference from governors, local councils and the Department for Education is confusing schools, said the report. Funding was also found to be too complicated and heads often do not have enough administrative support.

And it said changes should be made to streamline the system, allowing head teachers more time to concentrate on improving educational standards and managing their staff.

The task force wants the government to cut heads' paperwork burden

The Better Regulation Task Force was set up by the government to ensure its own regulations are necessary, fair and understandable.

Its chairman, Lord Haskins, said that it was particularly concerned about the effect red tape was having on small schools.

He said: "The understandable effort to support struggling schools is also creating more bureaucracy for these schools.

"It is ridiculous to expect such schools to have to deal with up to 40 different funding streams."