BURNT MILL Academy Trust has been told to justify high levels of executive pay in their organisation reports schools week

Eileen Milner, the head of the Education and Skills Funding Agency, has written to the trust because their accounts show they paid someone more than £150,000 in 2017-18 or multiple people between £100,000 and £150,000.

For two of the trusts – the Burnt Mill Academy Trust and Xavier Catholic Education Trust – it is the first time they have been warned by officials over executive pay. The remaining 10 have previously received similar letters.

The latest intervention is part of an ongoing clampdown on largesse in academy sector pay. Milner wrote to 212 trusts about the issue last year, and reports that around 25 per cent of those warned have now reported reducing salaries. In December last year, Schools Week revealed the names of 50 academy trusts that had cut pay in response to government warnings.

“Trusts have a responsibility to ensure value for money and that salary and other remuneration payments are transparent, proportionate, reasonable and justifiable,” said Milner in her latest letter. “The ESFA has a responsibility to ensure that best practice is exemplified in the system to
ensure this accountability.”

She urged trust chairs to consider the educational performance, financial performance and size of their organisations when setting pay of senior executives.

A BMAT spokesman said: “BMAT’s CEO is not paid over DfE recommendations and has not received a pay increase for several years. Also, we no longer have two executives paid more than £100,000; these were short-term posts.

“Any salaries are benchmarked against similar sized trusts. At BMAT, we are committed to paying staff well and all staff receive minimum pay. We believe our staff deserve good financial remuneration because they work so hard and get excellent results for children in public examinations. They go above and beyond.”