More than half of the country’s largest multi-academy trusts increased the six-figure salaries of their top earners last year, as teachers and heads faced a pay freeze.

Tes analysis of the latest academy trust accounts shows that most of the MATs running 25 schools or more increased the salary of their chief executive in 2021-22.

One trust increased the salary of its highest earner by at least £55,000 - or 31 per cent - while another two trusts increased the pay of their top earners by at least £20,000 compared with the previous year.

Tes has analysed the 2021-22 accounts of the 49 academy trusts that run 25 or more schools that have been published in recent months.

• Academy trust pay: ESFA creating high-paying academy hit list
• Background: One in six academy trusts paying top earners over £150,000
• MAT pay: DfE has “no handle” on “excessive” salaries

Pay rises for academy trust leaders

Of these, at least 26 trusts increased the pay of their highest earner, resulting in an increase in their pay band last year.

Another 17 trusts were paying the same amount or within the same salary band, while six trusts paid less to their chief executive in 2021-22 than they had done a year earlier.

Most of the published accounts show only the top and bottom of the salary pay band of a trust’s top earner, rather than a specified chief executive salary.

Pay rises or drops could be masked within these figures, where the top earner’s salary has stayed within the same pay band.
 

Responding to the Tes findings, Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: “Our benchmarking research shows that average trust leadership salaries are in line with similar roles in the public sector and charities. Individual salary changes can be for many reasons.”

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that trust boards would be aware of how pay awards may be viewed by the staff in their trusts and schools, the government and the wider public.

“That’s a lot of factors to consider, and boards put a lot of thought into getting this right with a view to ensuring they are able to recognise and retain strong and effective leadership, while ensuring good value for money. Ultimately, it is about what benefits the pupils in the trust’s schools, and good leadership is clearly key,” he said.

And Mr Barton added that, while the government’s decision to freeze teacher pay in 2021-22 was “extremely damaging and unfair”, trust boards would “still have needed to go through the process of reviewing the performance, responsibilities and pay of executive leaders, and making the best decision they could in the circumstances”.

But Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, warned that the MAT system would likely lead to “very many inefficiencies compared with local authorities - the number of high-paid posts is just one of them”.

“At the very least there should be a national system of pay and conditions which would aid transparency,” he added.

Highest-paying large MAT 

The Harris Federation remains the highest-paying academy trust for executive pay.

Its chief executive, Sir Dan Moynihan, continued to earn between £455,000 and £460,000 in 2021-22 - the same as the previous year.

When his pension contribution was included, his remuneration package was between £530,001 and £540,000 in 2021-22, according to trust documents.

The trust’s second-highest-paid staff member in 2021-22 was paid a salary of more than a quarter of a million pounds, and the Harris Federation employed another two members of staff on more than £220,000 a year.   

The trust accounts also show that it had 43 members of staff on six-figure salaries. Harris was contacted for comment.

No other published accounts from the country’s large trusts showed top earners being paid more than £300,000.

The big rises in top MAT pay

Leigh Academies Trust was the second highest-paying big trust for 2021-22.

The trust paid its chief executive, Simon Beamish, between £280,000 and £285,000 in 2021-22. This was a salary band increase of at least £20,000 compared with the previous year, when the trust paid between £255,000 and £260,000.

The trust increased the number of schools it ran from 28 to 31 in the same period.

Leigh Academies Trust was approached for comment.

It was one of two trusts that paid its top earner at least £20,000 more in 2021-22 compared with the previous year. The salary of the chief executive at Delta Academies Trust rose from between £225,000 and £230,000 in 2020-21 to between £250,000 and £255,000 in the year ending last August. 

The trust ran 51 schools in both years.

When contacted by Tes, Delta explained that there had been “a change in the associated contractual arrangements”. Accounts show that CEO Paul Tarn’s pension contribution went down from £53,945 to £24,739 over the same period.

Sometimes trust accounts state that a chief executive has received a higher salary because they are paid extra in lieu of pension contributions.

As an example, the accounts for The Kemnal Academies Trust explain that £35,000 to £40,000 of chief executive Karen Roberts’ £230,000 to £240,000 salary was “in lieu of a pension contribution”.

The biggest percentage increase in top-earner pay was awarded by Shaw Education Trust. Its top earner’s salary rose from between £170,000 and £175,000 in 2020-21 to between £230,000 and £235,000 last year - an increase of at least £55,000, or 31 per cent.

However, the trust said this included some backpay to its chief executive, Jo Morgan, for a previous year’s performance.

A spokesperson for the trust said: “Within the financial year 2021-22, the remuneration committee established a three-year pay structure for the CEO, which includes key performance indicators, running from September 2020 to August 2023.

“The figures presented in the 21-22 annual accounts include an element of backpay, which related to payments due for work undertaken in the previous financial year (2020-21). There was a further one-off payment for 50 per cent of untaken holiday accrued during the pandemic.” 

The trust said these adjustments “give the impression that the percentage of salary increase for the CEO in one year has increased more than it has”. It said that, excluding the two adjustments, the CEO’s annual salary increase was approximately 10 per cent.

CEO pay ‘a competitive marketplace’

Stephen Morales, chief executive of the Institute of School Business Leadership, said there were several factors behind CEO and executive pay going up in a year when teacher pay was frozen.

Firstly, there is no pay framework for CEOs, which makes it a “more competitive marketplace”, he said.

Secondly, and related to this, he added: “It’s a lot easier to increase the CEO pay than to increase a teacher’s salary or a headteacher’s salary, because there’s no proper benchmark. The trust will pay what you can afford to pay, and that’s in the gift of the trustees.”

The other consideration was the need to retain talent. “It’s really hard to get good CEOs and good CFOs [chief financial officers] in particular, so you do anything you can to hold on to them,” Mr Morales said, adding: “Because recruiting again will create turbulence in your trust. And if, actually, you invest an extra 10 per cent, that’s probably less than it’s going to cost you to recruit that person.”

Mr Morales also said it was hard to judge the normal rate of pay for CEOs because of “outliers that are so big that they skew the average”.

“You can look at trusts of comparable size and you compare pay, and one salary can throw it all,” he said.

Commenting on the analysis, Sam Henson, director of policy and information at the National Governance Association (NGA), said that “the first key issue” was not about executive pay but the fact that teacher pay was frozen.

“Under any normal circumstances, in any other sector, particularly in 2021-22 as inflation gripped society, pay should be going up regardless of role. Life is costing more, and so organisations need to pay more,” he said.

Mr Henson added that trust pay may also have gone up as the trusts themselves grew. “The needs of trusts would have changed and trusts would have to ensure they are employing the right people, on the right salary for the needs of the trust,” he said.

Under NGA guidance, Mr Henson said, ”every trust board needs to first think about the sector overall, and the position of academy trusts as charities” before pay decisions are made.

“Trusts need to reward leaders properly, but salaries are paid from public money and so there needs to be a very well thought out rationale each time for why and how these higher salaries are being arrived at. That isn’t saying they are wrong - but that they need to be well considered and thought through, which I think the vast majority are,” he added.

Asked about how trusts could limit the problems that may arise from a growing gap between executive pay and workforce pay in a year when teacher pay did not increase, he added: “A number of charities, corporate companies and some trusts use pay ratios as a formal part of their pay policy, and these can be a really positive tool for showing a very upfront commitment to transparency in pay approach across the trust.

“I think they are something the sector should debate more widely on how they can be used.”

Trusts expanding

The Tes analysis shows that of the 26 trusts that increased the pay of their top earner last year, 16 had taken on more schools in that time - with individual MATs expanding by between one and 18 schools from 2020-21 to 2021-22.

Figures also suggest that the number of staff on more than £100,000 at the 49 trusts was up by around 6 per cent on average.

Five trusts now have 25 or more people on over £100,000.

But Mr Henson said the number of staff on over £100,000 was not necessarily “cause for alarm in itself”.

He said many of the big trusts would have roles, with greater levels of responsibility, that smaller trusts won’t always have, or will have less of.

“Some of this will just be down to the fact they are bigger organisations, with greater industries and greater levels of responsibility for greater numbers of pupils,” he added.

Drop in pay as trusts changed CEO

The accounts also show drops in top-earner salary at two of the largest multi-academy trusts in the country that have had a change in leadership in the past two years.

Accounts for Academies Enterprise Trust show that Julian Drinkall was paid between £240,000 and £245,000 for his work as chief executive up until the end of May 2021. 

The accounts show that his successor, Rebecca Boomer-Clark, was paid between £200,000 and £210,000 the following year.

Accounts for Reach2 also show a reduction in its top pay band.

The trust’s 2021-22 accounts show that it paid between £210,000 and £220,000.

A year earlier, its then chief executive, Sir Steve Lancashire, was paid between £220,000 and £230,000.

In 2021-22, he was paid between £150,000 and £160,000 up until April of last year, when he left. His successor, Cathie Paine, was then paid between £70,000 and £80,000 for the role from April to August.

Last month the Kreston 2023 Academies Benchmark Report revealed that movement on MAT chief executive salaries had varied in 2021-22 depending on the size of MATs.

For small and medium MATs, there had been an average increase of 3.9 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively. However, in the larger MATs, average CEO salary fell by 2.5 per cent.

However, in the Kreston analysis large MATs were defined as any trust with more than 7,500 pupils. Today’s Tes investigation has looked at the very largest trusts in the country with 25 or more schools.

ESFA identifying high-paying ‘outliers’

As Tes reported last year, the Education and Skills Funding Agency is working on identifying a list of trusts to target over high pay.

It has previously written letters challenging trusts paying more than £150,000, or with multiple staff on six-figure salaries.

It is now working on identifying “outliers”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are in the process of reviewing the data on executive pay in trusts, which will influence our future approach on challenging trusts with comparatively high executive pay.

“It is essential that we have the best people to lead our schools if we are to raise standards, but we are clear academy trust salaries should be justifiable and reflect the individual responsibility alongside local retention and recruitment needs.

“We will continue to challenge high pay where it is neither proportionate nor directly linked to improving pupil outcomes.”

The department said that the ESFA has now also included high pay into the risk assessment processes it has for identifying academy trusts that it has concerns about.