The company which helped run Bradford’s schools for a decade has insisted performance-related payments were a “fundamental” part of its contract with the Council.

It comes after teaching unions the National Union of Teachers and NASUWT in Bradford called for Serco, which owned Education Bradford, to give back some incentive payments after they said it failed to live up to expectations.

Under the original terms of the contract the company, which ran schools in the city from 2001 up to last year, was expected to bring pupils’ performance up to national averages, and was measured against targets relating to exclusions, bullying, racism and bringing schools out of Ofsted areas of concern.

The T&A reported in October the targets were lowered during the contract to make them challenging but realistic, but more than £5 million was still awarded in the first nine years, with the figures for the final year yet to be confirmed. In the first year of the deal, Education Bradford received £8,450, with the highest amount, of £923,607, awarded in 2003-4 when 38 out of 75 targets were achieved.

A spokesman for Serco said: “Full contractual payment in any given year was dependent on Serco meeting agreed performance targets. The use of deferred incentive payments within the fixed price ten year contract reflected the Council's priority outcomes and were only paid if the agreed performance targets had been achieved.”