Tutors’ anger at V-C Hood’s pay
Vice Chancellor John Hood, under fire over pay increase
Oxford’s tutors could strike after Vice-Chancellor John Hood was awarded a fiftyeight percent pay rise in just three years. The rise was the third highest nationally, with the Vice-Chancellors of Surrey and Cardiff Universities both awarded sixty-one percent pay rises. Hood is now paid £197,000 per annum, after a thirty-one percent pay rise in the last year alone.
The starting salary for a University lecturer at Oxford is around £24,000, although the University can pay some non-CUF lecturers as little as £15,500 per annum. This excludes National Insurance and pension contributions, which vary depending on the enmployee’s pay. However, some experienced lecturers, or Readers, can be paid upwards of £40,000. But University spokeswoman Ruth Collier said that this was not truly reflective of pay levels.
“Lecturers may also be college fellows, so the University may only pay half of their salary. In reality they could be paid twice what the University gives them.” Dan Ashley, a spokesman for the Association of University Tutors, described University staff as “incredibly angry”. “It was promised that increased funds from topup fees would be used to increase their salaries, and the fact that so far there is no evidence of this is considered pretty low”.
Members of the Association of University Teachers have requested a national enquiry into Vice-Chancellors’ pay after the Times Higher Educational Supplement revealed that Vice Chancellors’ salaries have risen by twenty-five percent on average over the past three years. Last month they held a strike to demand better pay, and Ashley said they were planning to hold talks with employers over potential resolutions.
“We’ll decide action later if the talks go badly,” he said, but did not rule out further strikes or other industrial action. Salaries of lecturers and tutors have risen by five percent in the past twenty • a slump of forty percent compared to similar professions. The average national starting salary for an academic is £24,000. The rises mean that thirtythree Vice-Chancellors now earn more than the Prime Minister, and eighteen of those earn over £200,000.
Their pay goes largely unchecked at the moment, whereas that of their staff is subjected to close scrutiny. The AUT believe that this should no longer be the case and is calling for greater transparency and clear guidelines that outline why Vice-Chancellors receive the rises they do. The General Secretary of Natfhe, Paul Mackney, points out the problem: “When the HE sector struggled for funding the employers awarded themselves bumper pay rises.
When institutions are expecting significant new funds [from top-up fees] the same Vice-Chancellors want to deny their staff the same rate of increase they enjoyed. Why?” Collier said, “Hood has repeatedly said that he wants to increase salaries, hence the desire to increase topup fees. His own salary is not up to him, and he and the University are committed to raising salaries for staff… The problem is that we need to get the money in to do it.
“Oxford was trying to reflect national levels of pay for Vice-Chancellors. Traditionally pay rates here have been low, and his rise was set by a committee. Oxford is still 19th on the list of Vice-Chancellors’ pay, with universities such as the London Business School awarding their Vice-Chancellor £310,000 a year… In Cambridge the rate is £190,000.” Ashley said, “That means [Hood} is pretty high up, it puts him in the top bracket of pay rates.
“You have to question what ‘in-line’ actually means.” The AUT declined to reveal how many University staff belonged to their union, but stated that the national average was between sixty and seventy percent.
20th Apr 2006