Expense claims released under the Freedom of Information Act lay bare for the first time what critics claim is an extraordinary extravagance by some academy chain chief executives and principals, at a time when schools are struggling financially.

The taxpayer is paying Ian Cleland, the £180,000-a-year chief executive at Academy Transformation Trust, to lease and have joint insurance with his wife on an XJ Premium Luxury V6 Jaguar car, it can be disclosed. Included in nearly £3,000 worth of receipts is payment for servicing the car and the purchase of new tyres.

Cleland has also spent £3,000 of taxpayers’ money on first-class rail travel, while dining expenses racked up on his taxpayer-funded credit card include a meal with other staff at Marco Pierre White totalling £471, and the Bank restaurant in Birmingham, at a cost £703.45. …

… The Paradigm Trust pays for its CEO, Amanda Phillips, to have broadband at her holiday home in France, even though she earns £195,354 a year.

Meanwhile, as former education secretary Michael Gove’s vision of a more market-led school system has materialised, in which multi-academy trusts have taken the place of local authorities, salary levels have soared within the management tier, it can be revealed. More than half of the largest 50 chains pay their chief executives more than the prime minister (£143,000). Sir Daniel Moynihan, the chief executive of the high-performing Harris Federation, earns £395,000 a year.

The chief executive of the Aspirations Academies Trust, which runs 12 schools, pays its chief executive and founder, Stewart Kenning, a total package of £225,000, while his wife, Paula Kenning, receives £175,000 as executive principal and founder. And as the salaries have shot up, the so-called related party transactions – where companies with close links to directors of academy trusts are paid for services to those trusts – have also multiplied.

Take, for example, the US organisation founded by Dr Russell Quaglia, the American-based co-founder of the Aspirations Academy Trust (AAT). In a document uncovered through a freedom of information request, the trust claims to the regulator that it is abiding by the no-profit rule governing such transactions, and it is suggested that the American is working at a discount.

It actually costs Quaglia $8,300 (£6,330) a time to come to Britain, AAT claims. “This is based on transportation costs to and from the US, including parking and travel to and from airports in the US – $5,000,” the document says, adding of further costs: “Hotels and meals: $3,000; internal travel (trains/cabs/tubes): $300. For six visits a year, the [annual] average cost would therefore be $49,800.”

The trust adds that the provision of Quaglia’s top-of-the-range staff and student surveys to the schools costs an additional $20,000 a year. And his normal consultancy rates range from $9,600 a day to $18,000 a day, plus travel costs, it is said. “The amounts paid directly to Dr Quaglia, in lieu of basic salary, range from $8,000 to $15,000.

“Based on 15 days’ consultancy for the AAT, the total day rate cost would be a minimum of $120,000. We can confirm that Dr Quaglia is in high demand and turns down 75% of approaches, so any time not devoted to ATT would be easily filled by other paying engagements. In conclusion, the cost … equates to £114,337, which is significantly above the charged amount of £89,724.” …