When academies were introduced 20 years ago, they were intended to improve the performance of schools and their students, by setting them free of local authority control – a proposition that has become embedded within the secondary education sector.

However, it now seems that many of these businesses have gone the way of formerly publicly owned services such as water companies, in which executive pay and shareholder dividends take precedence over water quality (MPs accuse DfE of failing to control academy leaders’ excessive salaries, 25 March).

High salaries are frequently justified by reference to “market forces”; such a specious claim cannot be made where the comparators are their erstwhile colleagues in neighbouring schools that have not sought or gained academy status.

Academies which have overstretched themselves by paying executive directors and their retinue unsustainable salaries and benefits should not be bailed out with public money.
Les Bright
Exeter, Devon