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ESFA chief warns 12 academy trusts over CEO pay

Twelve academy trusts have been told to justify high levels of executive pay in their organisations.

Eileen Milner, the head of the Education and Skills Funding Agency, has written to the trusts 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.

 

Warned for the first time

Burnt Mill Academy Trust

Xavier Catholic Education Trust

Warned again

Aston Community Education Trust

Education South West

Fylde Coast Academy Trust

Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation Trust

Ninestiles Academy Trust Limited

The Dean Trust

The Park Federation Academy Trust

Valley Invicta Academies Trust

Wellsway Multi Academy Trust

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One comment

  1. Mike Kelly

    So pleased that ESFA is keeping academies under close scrutiny.
    I would hope that the academies system could disappear and a fully functioning State system ONLY be reinstated. There are too many cases of mismanagement and financial abuses. Education should not be run on business lines and often CEOs have no expertise on educational matters.