They will no longer be allowed to offer paid advice to other maintained schools, except within a new pay framework. Any extra work, such as assisting other schools as school improvement partners, will have to be signed off by the governing body of their school.

Ministers were responding to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), the body that advises on teachers’ pay. The body’s report recommends ways should be found to cut the time it takes to become a head and urge people from other professions to become school leaders.

The Government had already accepted earlier advice from the STRB to give teachers a 2.45 per cent pay rise this year, a decision that sparked proposed strike action from the National Union of Teachers.

But primary and secondary heads were supportive of this week’s announcement. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the changes as providing a national pay structure for the increasingly diverse range of jobs done by school leaders, while still providing local flexibility for individual school and groups of schools.

The report also calls for “fundamental reform” of the system of school governance to make sure schools are led in the right manner.

Ed Balls, Children, Schools and Families Secretary, agreed to review how governors’ set headteachers pay.