Political

Controversy over pay in the university sector

The Daily Telegraph reports:

The pay packets of Britain’s university heads rocketed by as much as a fifth last year, just as institutions lobbied for a huge hike in student tuition fees…

More than 950 university staff, including all vice-chancellors, were paid more than the Prime Minister – an eight per cent increase on the year before.

One senior administrator at Oxford was given a salary of almost £600,000, thought to be the highest-paid university post in the country…

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the Universities and Colleges Union, added: “Staff and the general public are tired of the hypocrisy from vice-chancellors and their lack of self-awareness when it comes to pay is insulting.”…

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, told The Daily Telegraph at the time that university leaders needed to show “realism and self-sacrifice” and that their pay bore “no relation to the underlying economics of the country”.

Yet the average pay packet was £254,000, more than five times the average academic salary of almost £47,000.

One issue the article does not really address, but which the pay figures may focus more attention on in future, is the complicated administrative structure at most universities. Mapping out the overlapping roles of departments, faculties, colleges, schools, central administration and more in different institutions can make other parts of the public sector look remarkably simple by comparison, as I’ve experienced first hand working in one form or another at three different universities.

Yet the reforming zeal that is calling for changed and simplified structures in many other parts of public life has not – so far – really touched the university sector.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments and data you submit with them will be handled in line with the privacy and moderation policies.