The CEOs of FTSE 100 companies rake in obscene levels of salary, bonuses, share issues and perks regardless of the pay levels of their juniors and the performance of their companies.

It was new Labour that created academy schools and the notion of federations of academies with CEOs in remote control.

Michael Gove, when Education Secretary, eagerly promoted academies and strongly favoured the idea that heads of individual schools and federations should be managers with MBAs, rather than teachers from his hated Blob.

Now we have the bosses of academy federations with no conscience raking in up to half a million a year, plus perks such as company cars, enhanced pension contributions etc.

Let’s look back at more moral times. When I retired in 1996 as head of a large comprehensive school, that year saw the highest salary of my career: £46,000. I found the figure embarrassingly high, although I was the lowest-paid secondary head teacher in the borough of Greenwich and I knew that some heads of primary schools were earning more than me.  I was well content. How could I be otherwise?  I was the highest-paid teacher on the staff and I knew that if I were paid more, it could be done only at the expense of employing fewer teachers or support staff.

Some of the governors were annoyed that I was not at their beck and call all week, because I had a teaching timetable. These academy heads never teach. Indeed, some of them are not qualified to teach. They would run a mile rather than confront actual children.

Of course, the fat cat bastards seek to justify their pay by saying that their academies have turned around previously failing schools. No! It was not their remote control, sometimes at hundreds of miles distance, that improved children’s educational opportunities, it was the hard slog of teachers in the classrooms. The academies were helped by grants from central government at more generous levels than other schools receive. By taking the government’s shilling, academies have been able to afford new buildings, lots of technological kit, higher pay for some teachers in senior positions, more middle managers and, of course, rich pickings for the bosses.

 

New Labour was “entirely relaxed” about untamed greed in the City and it has spread from there.