Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the impact of pay awards to (a) chief executives and (b) other leadership staff of multi academy trusts on school budgets.

The responsibilities of school leadership staff have changed significantly in recent years, with many now running several academies in a multi-academy trust and taking on sponsor academies that require considerable improvement.

The Department is clear that academy trust salaries should be justifiable and reflect the local context. The Department’s expectations on this are clearly set out in the Academy Trust Handbook and the Setting Executive Salaries guidance. These documents provide the key contextual factors that trusts should be considering when setting or reviewing pay, such as: individual responsibility; retention and recruitment needs; the current and historic performance of the trust; the size of the trust; and the make-up of its academies, for example the mix of primary and secondary schools.

Academy trusts are transparent on pay and the Department has further strengthened transparency on pay by introducing new requirements for trusts to publish the number of employees whose benefits, including salary, pension contributions, taxable benefits, and termination payments, exceed £100,000 on their website in £10,000 bandings. Where employees are also trustees, this information must be disclosed in £5,000 bandings.

The financial health of the academies sector is strong and the latest published data shows that in 2020/21, 97.4% of trusts had a cumulative surplus or a zero balance. The Department continues to support academy trusts through the current economic challenges to ensure the sector remains strong. Equally, the Department continues to challenge high pay where it is neither proportionate nor directly linked to improving pupil outcomes, in order to maintain value for money, accountability and transparency.