Academy trust refuses to say how much its founders were paid for working for it in recent years

An academy trust is refusing to disclose how much its joint founders were paid in recent years while working for it, describing this as “sensitive personal data”.

The Griffin Schools Trust is also not revealing what the day rates for Liz Lewis and Ange Tyler were while they did consultancy work for the trust via a company they own; how many days they worked; or even how many people in total worked for the chain via the company.

Academy directors who work for trusts as employees have to have their salary and pensions payments disclosed, to within £5,000 bands.

Griffin’s position seems to leave Lewis and Tyler’s remuneration details undisclosed because they worked as consultants via a company rather than being employees. It came as a response from Griffin to a freedom of information request by me.

Griffin, which controls 13 academies, has been under intense scrutiny since its largest school, Stantonbury International in Milton Keynes, spectacularly failed an Ofsted last year, with the secondary now to be handed to another trust.