THE annual bill for eight of the town’s secondary school principals costs the tax payer more than half a million pounds, the Warrington Guardian has learned.

But the exact figure is expected to be even higher as the information does not include the salaries for head teachers at all academy schools, which have more freedom over pay than conventional local authority schools.

Figures released by the council reveal that eight head teachers earn between £620,000 and £659,992 collectively.

One head teacher takes home between £100,000 and £104,999 - earning more than a qualified nurse, a firefighter and police constable combined.

The lowest paid head teacher at a high school in Warrington earns between £55,000 and £55,999.

The bill for 64 primary school head teachers each year is between £3,490,000 and £3,809,936 with seven primary heads in Warrington earning the highest salary of between £65,999 and £69,999.

Published data follows recent calls from teaching unions to publish the exact salaries of teachers.

National executive member for the NASUWT for Merseyside and Cheshire, Mick Burrows, argued that head teachers’ pay should not be kept a secret as it’s public money and raised concerns that some school leaders were ‘trousering sizeable pay rises’ while colleagues were being made redundant.

This was backed up by Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, who added: “School leaders have highly responsible and important jobs and their salary should reflect this.

“But the combination of increased autonomy for schools and weak governance is failing to provide the appropriate regulation and scrutiny to ensure that head teachers’ salaries are determined in an open, fair and transparent manner.

"The opportunity for abuse is significant.”

Warrington South MP David Mowat added: “As a basic principle, I think that salaries funded by the taxpayer should be open to scrutiny by taxpayers – particularly for those on the highest salaries.”

How does the pay compare to other professions
Prime Minister
£142,500
Member of Parliament
£67,060
Specialist doctor
£37,176 - £69,325
NHS Consultant
£75,249 - £101,451
Qualified nurse
21,388 - 27,901
Cheshire's Police and Crime Commissioner
£75,000
Police constable
£22,221 to £36,885
Firefighter (competent)
£28,766
Station manager in Fire Service
£37,096
Secondary school teacher
£21,804 - £31,868
Council leader Warrington
£27,926.04