Schools may be snubbing commercial deals – set up by the Department for Education to save them money – because they are “pants”, the academies minister has admitted.

The DfE currently has a series of 34 national deals on items that schools regularly spend money on, ranging from audit services and electricity supply to building-cleaning services.

In a speech to the national conference of the Institute of School Business Leadership, Lord Agnew acknowledged that schools were facing funding pressures.

He said that “getting the best value for money from your non-staff costs is an area of our priority”, and cited two “buying hubs” the DfE had set up, as well as “a number of commercial deals”.

However, when he asked the audience whether they had actually used any of the deals created over the past 18 months, only about 10 per cent of people raised their hands.

“For me, this is a real challenge," he said at the event last week. "There are only two answers to that question. One is the deals we are doing are pants, and we are wasting our time, or we are not telling you about it loudly enough.

“If it’s the first, and these deals aren’t good enough, you really must tell us. I can’t put it any more bluntly than that. We need your feedback.”

He urged the audience to tell DfE officials if the deals were “too bureaucratic” or if “you are doing something better”.

Lord Agnew acknowledged that “this is new ground for the department and it does require your support”.

He added: “There are savings to be had if you are open-minded enough to look into them, and of course it is the most painless way to save money just by improving the procurement of this non-teacher spend, which is around £10 billion a year across the system.”