Revealed: Scores of academy trust leaders paid more than director of England’s largest education authority

And heads of five single-school academy trusts each had higher salaries than the person overseeing 444 non-academy schools in Hampshire

 

Scores of academy trust leaders were paid more than the person overseeing schools for England’s largest local authority last year– despite heading organisations far smaller, fresh analysis by Education Uncovered shows.

At least 67 chief executives and other senior managers of academy trusts received higher salaries than did Stuart Ashley, the director of children’s services at Hampshire County Council, though the latter oversaw a remarkable 444 schools, with twice as many pupils as England’s largest academy chain.

Some 18 people on the multi-academy trust high pay list, all of whom were paid more than Mr Ashley, were not even the most senior person within their organisation, the analysis shows.

One person was paid more than £100,000 more than Mr Ashley, to lead one school, via a single academy trust which was less than one fiftieth the size of Hampshire, in terms of pupil numbers. Eight academy trusts on this list paid their leader more than Mr Ashley despite operating organisations with fewer than one 50^th of the number of pupils seen at non-academies in Hampshire.

The academies sector also appears to be shelling out far more in employers’ pensions payments to its leadership than do local authorities, with average pension packages among England’s 10 largest chains twice the size of those paid by the largest councils.

Comparing the largest organisations within the two sectors, England’s 10 largest academy chains paid more than £100,000 more in salary alone to their leaders than did their counterparts in the local authority sector, even though the latter oversaw more than double the number of pupils.

The revelations, based on analysis of local authority and academy trust accounts, will underline concerns that the multi-academy trust policy has had an inflationary impact on spending on school administration, with last month’s schools white paper offering few concrete plans to address this.