The Department for Education has rejected calls from MPs for more transparency over the salaries of highly-paid academy trustees, a newly-published letter has revealed.

Last year, the chair of the Commons Education Select committee urged the DfE to apply rules about disclosing top civil service pay to academy trustees when it published its new sector annual report and accounts (SARA) for the academy sector.

In a letter to DfE permanent secretary Jonathan Slater last November, the then-chair of the committee Neil Carmichael said “transparency over the remuneration of trustees is essential for public confidence”. He added: “The department should consider applying the same level of disclosure to academy trustees as applies to members of the civil service”.

The government publishes an annual list of civil service “high earners” - meaning anyone earning over £150,000 - listing their name, job and salary in £5,000 bands.

But, in a letter to the committee sent last month and published today, Mr Slater says: “This has been considered but is not currently considered feasible, given the number of academy trust trustees.”

More information required

Mr Carmichael had also said that “as a minimum” more information should be given about those who were not headteachers or principals. It adds that the department “should consider breaking down the £150,000-plus band”.

In response, Mr Slater writes: “Academy trusts where individual trustee remuneration exceeds £150,000 have been listed in an annex to the SARA.”

However, as Tes reported last month, the DfE did not list the individuals, despite having previously said it would.

The 2015-16 SARA had a “qualified” audit opinion, because of what Mr Slater describes as “technical accounting issues with land and buildings”.

In his letter, he says he was taking steps to remove this qualification by collecting information from all academies about land and buildings, which will be followed by individual assessments by DfE officials.

He adds that the DfE was “actively seeking a legislative vehicle” to put the SARA on a statutory footing, in line with the accounts of other government departments.

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