Calls have been made to lift the “secrecy” surrounding decisions to award academy chain chief executives percentage pay rises up to 10 times bigger than the average teacher’s.

An investigation encountered a near universal refusal from academy trusts to provide details of why they gave their chiefs large salary hikes.

Chair of the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier, described the findings as “amazing” and said she was concerned about trusts’ lack of transparency.

“They need to bear in mind very, very firmly that this is not other people’s money, this is taxpayers’ money,” the MP said.

Tes approached 10 academy trusts and one federation of maintained schools, whose chief executives earned more than the prime minister and whose pay rose last year.

The increases - 18 per cent in one case, and between 14.6 and 20 per cent in another - took place against a backdrop of a national 2 per cent cap on the pay rise for teachers in 2015-16, which fell to just 1 per cent in 2016-17.

All of the school groups were asked if they paid their teachers any higher than the national pay-rise figure and none said that they had.

Each were asked to set out the process for making their chief executive’s pay award, and the basis upon which the rise was justified. All but one refused to share any of their chief executive’s performance objectives and all but two failed to give any of the metrics that the executives were judged against.

Transparency is ‘vital’

Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the NUT teaching union, said: “As in many private companies, the determination of the pay of these chief executives is shrouded in secrecy and it shouldn’t be. It’s public money.”

The union leader added that “real transparency” about academy pay policies was “vital”.

The stance of school groups contrasts with the civil service, which has published annual objectives for its permanent secretaries - and how progress against each objective will be measured - since 2012.

Employment experts have warned that if executive pay rises are out of kilter with the rest of the workforce and not properly explained, they can have a demotivating effect on staff.

A survey in December 2015 by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 59 per cent of employees said the high level of CEO pay in the UK demotivated them.

Six of the school groups said they used remuneration committees to decide executive pay, but only one revealed the identities of committee members when asked.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said that reports of “six-figure salaries, bonus and benefit packages” for an increasing number of MAT leaders “at a time when teachers have faced deep cuts to their pay” were “deeply concerning”.

There are no government rules or guidance on how executive and leadership pay should be set by academies (see box, right).

According to the National Governors’ Association, the Department for Education was developing benchmarking data on leadership pay but abandoned the project because it did not want to appear too prescriptive (see box, right). Emma Knights, the association’s chief executive, branded some high pay levels as “a failure of governance” and called for limits to how long school chairs of governors could serve, to prevent them from becoming too close to senior leaders.

“Sometimes we think there should be a little bit more distance,” she said.

Ms Hillier said the lack of rules had resulted in a “free for all” for academy trusts.

“They can do what they want and no one’s going to stop them,” she said.

The pay rises were awarded amid some of the toughest school budgets in years. But the latest published accounts for academy trusts suggest austerity has yet to feed through to executive pay.

Sir Craig Tunstall, the chief executive of Gipsy Hill Federation, a group of nine local authority schools in south London, earned £330,394 in 2015-16, according to Lambeth Council’s accounts.

This represented an 18 per cent increase of more than £50,000 compared with the previous year. The federation failed to respond to repeated requests to set out how that increase was justified.

A spokesman for Lambeth Council said that it was “seeking reassurance” from the governing body that the pay package complied with regulations and national guidance

Ms Hillier warned of the risk of “pay inflation” for school executives “where pay ramps up, one person is paid more, then the next person demands more”.

Awards ‘frankly unethical’

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL teaching union, said that when most teachers were limited to “austerity pay rises of 1 per cent”, “excessive” pay rises for chief executives were “very unfair” and “quite frankly unethical”.

But Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was unrealistic to have a “standardised system” for executive pay.

“This is not a market that can be readily regulated because of the complexity and diverse range of MATs that are out there,” he said.

He added that pay had been partly driven up by “supply and demand” because of a “national leadership shortage”. But he said MATs should be “open about the factors they have taken into account” when setting pay.

A DfE spokesman said that it was “for governing bodies to determine the salary that school leaders will be paid”.

“It is vital we have the best people to lead our schools if we are to raise standards,” he said. “That’s why we have given all schools greater flexibility to set staff pay.”

@whazell

Executive pay rises revealed in the latest (2015-16) accounts

Harris Federation

Greater London, 41 schools

CEO: Sir Daniel Moynihan

CEO pay: £420,000-£425,000

Previous year’s pay: £395,000-£400,000

Pay rise: 5% (minimum), 7.6% (maximum)

Harris said the pay for key management personnel was set by a remuneration committee and provided a list of members. Awards were agreed on the basis of “performance and responsibility”. Sir Daniel’s performance was “judged on whether each individual Harris academy meets its own targets…The targets vary by academy and encompass a broad range of factors.”

Gipsy Hill Federation

South London, nine schools

CEO: Sir Craig Tunstall

CEO pay: £330,394

Previous year’s pay: £279,922

Pay rise: 18%

Did not respond to requests for comment.

Academies Enterprise Trust

Nationwide, 66 schools

CEO: Ian Comfort (until January 2017, when Julian Drinkall took over)

CEO pay: £236,000 (Drinkall £240,000)

Previous year’s pay (Comfort): £225,000

Pay rise (Comfort): 4.9%

The trust said it based salaries on “a comprehensive external benchmarking exercise, which examined comparable organisations in both the public and private sectors”, and applied a “cost of living award… in line with government policy in the public sector”. It declined to share the chief executive’s performance objectives or metrics used to appraise their performance.

Ambitions Academies Trust

Dorset, six schools

CEO: Brian Hooper (until August 2016) then Sian Thomas (interim)

CEO pay: Hooper £235,000-£240,000, Thomas £120,000

Previous year’s pay: £200,000-£205,000

Pay rise (Hooper): 14.6% (minimum), 20% (maximum)

AAT said chief executive performance was reviewed by all trustees and confidentially submitted to the CEO appraisal committee. This was followed by a performance-management interview of the chief executive, a financial benchmarking exercise and then a pay award. The trust said that Mr Hooper’s pay award reflected “a very successful year”, including the incorporation of St Aldhelm’s Academy into the trust, which moved from “inadequate” to “good” in nine months, and all other academies being “outstanding” or “deemed to be making ‘outstanding’ progress”.

Boston Witham Academies Federation

Lincolnshire, eight schools

CEO: Adrian Reed

CEO pay: £215,000-220,000

Previous year’s pay: £210,000-215,000

Pay rise: Up to 4.8% increase

The trust said directors were responsible for setting pay for key management personnel, with each position having a scale attached to the post and any variations needing approval by the directors or relevant subcommittee. The chief executive’s appraisal was conducted by the executive pay committee, which includes three directors and receives advice from an independent education advisor.

The trust said Mr Reed’s pay increase reflected a change in his responsibility when Staniland Academy was granted teaching school status in August 2015.

BWAF was the only organisation that shared the objectives of its CEO. These were to:

* Develop and promote the Connect Teaching School Alliance.

* Move towards a 10 per cent budget share surplus for each academy by August 2017.

* Meet the Progress 8 floor standard.

* Maintain high attainment at Carlton Road and at Staniland.

The Holland Park Trust

West London, one school

Head: Colin Hall

Head pay: £220,000

Previous year’s pay: £190,000

Pay rise: 15.8%

Anne Marie Carrie, chair of governors at Holland Park School, said trustees set pay through an independent performance committee. She said the school had achieved “outstanding academic performance under the leadership of the headteacher and the rest of the senior team”. The trust did not share Mr Hall’s performance objectives or the metrics against which he was appraised.

Paradigm Trust

London and Ipswich, five schools

CEO: Amanda Phillips

CEO pay: £213,018

Previous year’s pay: £195,384

Pay rise: 9%

Paradigm said a committee of non-executive directors was responsible for the chief executive’s performance review and agreeing her remuneration. According to Paradigm’s accounts, the “annual assessment of her performance and individual objectives set are wholly linked to the multi-academy trust’s overall performance”.

Loxford School Trust

London and Essex, five schools

CEO: Anita Johnson

CEO pay: £210,000-215,000

Previous year’s pay: £200,000-£205,000

Pay rise: 2.4% (min), 7.5% (max)

The trust said the chief executive’s salary was split into two parts - a CEO element and a salary for being the headteacher of Loxford. Her salary is set by trust directors “following an annual appraisal” taking into account “performance and any changes in responsibilities”. The trust did not provide any performance objectives or metrics that were used to justify Ms Johnson’s pay increase.

Rodillian Multi-Academy Trust

Yorkshire, seven schools

CEO: Andy Goulty

CEO pay: £210,000

Previous year’s pay: £190,000

Pay rise: 10.5%

Did not respond to requests for comment.

Ormiston Academies Trust

Nationwide, 31 schools

CEO: Toby Salt

CEO pay: £205,000-£210,000

Previous year’s pay: £200,001-£205,000

Pay rise: Up to 5%

Ormiston said: “Senior staff pay is set and reviewed by the trust board and is commensurate with performance and the scale and significance of each role.”

The CEO’s pay is decided by a remuneration committee, but the trust did not detail the chief executive’s performance objectives or the metrics he was appraised against.

Wakefield City Academies Trust

Yorkshire, 21 schools

CEO: Mike Ramsay (Alan Yellup to May 2016)

CEO pay (Yellup): £180,000-£190,000

Previous year’s pay: £160,000-£165,000

Pay rise (Yellup): 9% (min), 18.8% (max)

Did not respond to requests for comment.