Michael Gove is once again under fire for providing inaccurate information about his department’s policies.

Last month the Education Secretary was criticised for repeatedly releasing incorrect lists of the schools affected by changes to the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Though this slip was decidedly more cock-up than conspiracy, today Mr Gove is on the end of a much more serious charge – and one which his department refuses to acknowledge.

Teaching union the NUT has accused the Secretary of State of misleading the public following the release of information showing 153 schools were applying to become academies, when Mr Gove had previously claimed the figure was over 1,000.

The Department insist that the original number simply indicated those schools which had expressed an interest, not those who had applied.

Yet if a misunderstanding arose over what the figure cited last month represented, it can be seen that the Department may have contributed to the confusion.

In a press release of 2 June, Michael Gove is quoted as saying: "The response has been overwhelming. In just one week, over 1,100 schools have applied."

Given that the 153 is the number of school which did, in fact, apply, by talking of applications the first time around, Mr Gove’s information was inaccurate.

Full Fact put this point to the Department, who were unrepentant over the wording of the original press release.

“It's semantics over what you mean by 'apply'. Schools expressed an interest and said they were keen to look into being an academy,” a spokesman said.

But what did this process of registering interest actually involve? Was there anything in it that could be reasonably construed as applying?

“You had to go on the website fill out your details, the name of the school, and various other details. You had to physically do something - it wasn't just clicking on a link or anything like that,” the spokesman told us.

The page the spokesman is talking about is listed as a registration of interest rather than an application, so while the Department may dismiss the semantics of the argument, at least to Full Fact, it appears a much more serious misrepresentation of the facts.