No multi-academy trust boss should receive a larger pay increase than their teaching staff, the academies minister has said.

Lord Agnew also said that MAT chief executives should have their pay cut if there is a downturn in the performance of their schools.

In a letter sent to MAT chairs today, he said: “Eileen Milner, the new CEO of the [Education and Skills Funding Agency], has recently written to a number of single-academy trusts where remuneration for a trust employee is above £150,000, and will shortly be writing to MATs where this applies, too. 

“I believe that not all boards are being rigorous enough on this issue. CEO and senior pay should reflect the improvements they make to schools’ performance and how efficiently they run their trusts. I would not expect the pay of a CEO or other non-teaching staff to increase faster than the pay award for teachers.

“I intend to continue to challenge this area of governance. My view is that we should see a reduction in CEO pay where the educational performance of the schools in the trust declines over several years.”

‘Secrecy’ over executive pay

Last May, a Tes investigation revealed “secrecy” surrounding pay packages in the sector, with a number of MATs that awarded their CEOs large pay increases refusing to share the metrics that were used to judge the executives’ performance.

Salary increases for some chief executives have also raced ahead of pay awards for teachers.

While the profession has received an overall annual pay increase of 1 per cent in recent years, a Tes investigation in November found that the country’s top-paying trusts had approved increases for their bosses of up to 141 per cent.

And last month Sir Dan Moynihan, the chief executive of the Harris Federation, became the first academy leader in the country to break through the £500,000 pay barrier.

Lord Agnew’s intervention follows a letter sent by the ESFA to a number of trusts in December asking them to justify why there were paying their chief executives more than £150,000.

Last month Ms Milner revealed that about two-thirds of the 29 academy chairs who received the letter had failed to provide a “reasonable” response, meaning they would be hauled into the ESFA to give an explanation.

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