'Publish head teachers' pay to combat salary abuses' - Telegraph.co.uk

Another head, Jacqui Valin, from Southfields Community College in south-west London, was handed a £20,594 pay rise in 2009/10 – up 11 per cent – to take her salary to £198,406.

It also emerged that Michael Wilkins, head of Outwood Grange Academy in Wakefield, received almost £100,000 extra for work at other schools in 2009 – on top of his £130,000 salary.

It is believed at least 100 state school heads now earn more than David Cameron's salary of £147,000.

On Monday, Chris Keates, NASUWT general secretary, called for all head teachers' salaries to be published. The same rules currently exist for MPs, councillors, local authority chief executives and the heads of public sector quangos.

She said the Government had created an "anything goes" culture in which schools do not have to stick to national pay deals.

"We've heard of a number of head teachers taking schools through to academy conversion, calling themselves executive heads and saying now they've got more responsibility they should get more pay," she said.

"There's no rationale or debate about it.

"There were examples from the South West by a delegate who raised them about a number of heads calling themselves executive heads, and just because they have changed their title, and they were in small primary schools, they were getting between £100,000 and £160,000."

Pay for heads of large schools in London – which can pay the most because of the high cost of living – are normally capped at around £110,000.

But governors can pay more to recruit and retain the very best heads and independent academies are not constrained by the same deal.

In a study last year, the GMB union said some received a generous pay increase despite the recession.

The NASUWT said one academy in the Midlands had almost a third of its staff on the leadership pay grade – giving them a minimum of £45,000.

Miss Keates said inflated salaries were often awarded "on the nod rather than on production of rigorous evidence to identify why this is" and these "abuses" had to be curbed.

"We have called for the publication of head teachers' pay," she added.

"Why should they be exempt from chief executives in the public sector that have to have their salaries published?

"We need more rigorous decision making."