Staff members at academy trusts running dozens of schools in Norfolk and Waveney were paid in excess of £150,000 last year.

Eastern Daily Press: Caister Academy, run by the Creative Education Trust. Picture: SuppliedCaister Academy, run by the Creative Education Trust. Picture: Supplied

Data from the Department for Education (DfE) showed that six academy trusts with schools in the region were found to have paid staff over the threshold in the year to August 31, 2017.

But an education union said it was reassuring to see that the majority of trusts in Norfolk 'have not opted for excessive pay'.

The trusts which paid at least one trustee or member of staff more than £150,000 were:

Academy Transformation Trust, based in Birmingham, which manages the Iceni Primary and Secondary academies in Methwold and Nicholas Hamond Academy in Swaffham.

Eastern Daily Press: Cliff Park Ormiston Academy, run by the Ormiston Academies Trust. Picture: ArchantCliff Park Ormiston Academy, run by the Ormiston Academies Trust. Picture: Archant (Image: Archant Norfolk © 2014)

Creative Education Trust, which runs five schools in Great Yarmouth – Caister Academy, Lynn Grove Academy, Woodlands Primary, and Wroughton Infant and Junior Schools.

The Hartismere Family of Schools, which includes Hartismere School in Eye, Benjamin Britten Academy of Music and Mathematics and Woods Loke Primary in Oulton Broad.

Inspiration Trust, which runs schools including Great Yarmouth Charter Academy, Cromer Academy, East Point Academy in Lowestoft, and Hewett Academy and Jane Austen College in Norwich.

Ormiston Academies Trust, also based in Birmingham, which runs academies including Broadland High, Cliff Park, Ormiston Denes and Ormiston Victory and the City of Norwich School.

Eastern Daily Press: Hewett Academy and Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form College, run by the Inspiration Trust. Pictures: DENISE BRADLEYHewett Academy and Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form College, run by the Inspiration Trust. Pictures: DENISE BRADLEY (Image: Archant)

Reach2 Academy Trust, which runs Beccles Primary and Gunton Primary.

A spokesman for the National Education Union said that academy trusts paying 'excessive' salaries to senior executives at a time of sustained funding cuts for state-funded schools was 'inexcusable'.

'Education is a public service and there should be no place for private profiteering.

'I am just glad that the vast majority of trusts in Norfolk have not opted for excessive pay for chief executives and look to retain a sense of public service dignity,' he said.

According to DfE figures, more than a third (36pc) of Norfolk's 353 state-funded primary schools are now academies, while 82pc of its 55 state-funded secondary schools are academies.