A number of academy governing body chairs will be hauled into the Department for Education to explain why they pay salaries of more than £150,000.

In December, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) wrote to 29 academy trusts that contain a single school to justify paying a salary of at least £150,000.

It said it was particularly concerned about 13 which were “at risk of financial difficulties”, but this month refused to name them because they needed a “safe space”.

Not happy with response

Eileen Milner, chief executive of the ESFA, this afternoon told the Commons Public Accounts Committee she was not happy with the responses to two-thirds of her letters.

She told the committee: “I would say that of the 29, a third have provided me with responses which I find to be reasonable and I am reassured by.

“The other two-thirds I am not so reassured - and the chairs of governors I am going to be inviting in to explain why they feel that these salaries are appropriate.

“I hope that you take some assurance that we are acting first to understand and then to challenge particular situations.”

Headteacher salaries letters 

Ms Milner said it was the first time the ESFA or its predecessor bodies had sent such letters, and Jonathan Slater, the DfE’s permanent secretary, added: “I would be very surprised if it was the last.”

Ms Milner said the ESFA was initially most interested in trustees paid more than £150,000 - who are almost always headteachers or chief executives - and added: “It’s the beginning of actually asking academies to be transparent and publicly accountable for what is set out for them in the handbook and which they sign up to as part of their financial agreement with us, so that is where we are starting.”

Mr Slater told the committee that the average salary of headteachers of local authority maintained schools was £88,000, compared to £92,000 for academy headteachers.

He said that salaries above £150,000 were “exceptional” - and if the ESFA found that a trust was in financial difficulties partly because of high pay it took action to persuade them to reduce it.

This month, Tes revealed that some academy executives had cut their pay by up to 40 per cent.

Mr Slater told MPs that academy headteachers’ salaries had fallen by about 0.5 per cent over the past 12 months.

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