Head’s �185k salary deemed “questionable” by official auditors

Auditors signing off the accounts of a financially-troubled multi-academy trust, where staff are facing redundancies, questioned whether the �185,000-plus salary paid last year to its executive principal was justified.

In the first such case this website has seen, the accounts of the Cheshire-based Heath Family Trust include an observation, from auditors Howard Worth, that they “question[ed] whether the remuneration of the executive principal, now retired…is an appropriate use of public funds”.

The statement came against the backdrop of what the 2016-17 accounts suggest has been a financial crisis facing the trust, which operates four secondary schools in Merseyside and Cheshire and four primary schools in Merseyside, and which also saw the pay of the former executive principal, Heather Mullaney, rise by more than 40 per cent over four years.

The 2016-17 accounts, which relate to the year to August 2017 but were signed off in December 2017, say that the trust’s reserves had reduced by £1.381m in 2016-17, down to £216,000, and that this reduction was “unsustainable”.

The accounts state: “The trust board recognises that the current year end position places the trust at risk of not having adequate resources to maintain its operational existence without external intervention.”