Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment, if any, they have made of the salaries paid to heads or chief executives of academy chains; and whether there is any correlation between the salary levels of such heads or executives and improvements in standards of education in those chains.

Our reforms over the last 8 years show that autonomy and freedom in the hands of excellent leaders and outstanding teachers can deliver a world-class education. Academy status leads to a more dynamic and responsive education system by allowing schools to make decisions based on local need and the interests of their pupils. It allows high performing schools to consolidate success and share their good practice across their local area. This includes over 550,000 children studying in sponsored primary and secondary academies that are now rated good or outstanding, which typically replaced underperforming schools and that is, in part, down to our reforms.

There is no single performance measure that adequately captures the scale, breadth and challenge within the roles of academy chain heads. Many of the highest paid trust chief executives work in some of the most challenging areas of the country and cover a number of schools, and have been able to achieve significant improvements for the children in their trust.

We are clear that high pay in academy trusts must be justified with evidence of robust processes for setting salaries and reductions where appropriate. That is why we have already challenged 213 trusts paying either one person more than £150,000 or 2 or more people more than £100,000. Since this work began, 45 trusts have reduced salaries in their latest accounts return and this month I have written to 28 of the 213 trusts challenged in the previous round of high pay activity to further challenge where salaries have not been reduced. We remain fully committed to continuing and developing this challenge process.