Schools trust told: Justify why you pay the bosses £150,000
AN academy trust running four Birmingham schools has been ordered to justify paying £100,000-plus salaries to senior staff.
The schools – Birchfield and Prince Albert primaries, both in Aston, Heathfield Primary in Lozells and Highfield Junior and Infant in Saltley – are all part of the Prince Albert Community Trust.
The body was among 28 nationwide ordered to account for the six-figure salaries to staff in a Government drive to curb ‘excessive’ pay packets at academy schools.
Trusts were asked to provide more details on the wages of executives who earned more than £150,000 – and those earning £100,000 if two or more people in a school were paid a sixfigure salary.
The latest published accounts for the Prince Albert Trust, for the year to August 31, 2018, showed two workers had “employee benefits” of between £150,001 and £160,000.
No staff member earned that much in the previous year and only one earned between £140,001 and £150,000.
According to the latest accounts, trust chief executive Sajid Gulzar was paid a salary of between £140,000 and £144,999, with pension contributions of between £20,000 and £24,999.
Deputy chief executive Mrs P Sherlock-Lewis was paid between £130,000 and £134,999, also with pension contributions of between £20,000 and £24,999.
Last month, Heathfield was named the city’s best primary in the Real Schools Guide published by the Post’s sister paper, the Birmingham Mail, having narrowly avoided being placed in special measures by Ofsted inspectors five years ago.
Mr Gulzar said in January: “Heathfield is in a neighbourhood where there are high levels of crime and social breakdown and issues with housing.
“But we don’t want our narrative to be about us being in a less affluent area. We’ve turned that on its head by saying we want our children to be even better than everyone else.”
Academies Minister Lord Agnew wrote to chairs of trustees on Tuesday, asking them to justify salaries and reassure ministers they were not “diverting financial resources that could be more effectively deployed on the front line of education”.
The Government said required that big salaries published in the accounts academy trusts.
And, in the face of public concern over the accountability of academy-run schools, it claimed they provided a “far higher level of public scrutiny than local authority schools”.
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The Department for Education said fewer than four per cent of trusts paid two or more salaries of between £100,000 and £150,000.
Lord Agnew said: “The best academies place freedom in the hands of school leaders but with that autonomy comes greater accountability and transparency, which is why I am insistent the salaries of executives are justifiable.
“Just because we are advocates of the academies programme, it doesn’t mean we won’t call a trust out where we believe they are not acting responsibly.
“The overwhelming majority of academies are behaving responsibly and by publicly challenging the minority of trusts that are not complying with this request, we will ensure every pound of public money is spent as effectively as possible to continue improving the standard of education in our schools.”