A football-style “transfer market” is pushing up multi-academy trust leaders’ pay by creating “bidding wars” for school leaders, one MAT boss has warned.
Andy Goulty, chief executive of Rodillian Academy Trust, was paid at least £255,000, including pension contributions, in 2017-18, according to a report in The Sunday Times today.
The trust, which runs four schools and a pupil-referral unit based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, was reprimanded in 2017 for paying thousands of pounds to put Mr Goulty up for 78 nights in a four-star hotel.
Academy pay: Revealed: The academy trusts paying £150k salaries
Background: Academy chain reprimanded for chief executive’s 78 nights at four-star hotel
Read: Academies must justify high pay to get capital funding
Academy bosses’ pay
Mr Goulty is quoted in The Sunday Times as saying there was a “football transfer market” among academy schools. He reportedly said he had been contacted as a result of “bidding wars” by more than a dozen headhunters after a think tank described his trust as successful.
According to the newspaper, he added: “I became a commodity. Other trusts were trying to poach me, and my salary rose in response to that.”
He said he had agreed to take a pay cut after the trust was issued with a financial notice to improve in February.
Last month, the Department for Education said academies and colleges bidding for capital funding to improve buildings must “show restraint on executive salaries”.
